A difference of understanding

According to Western media, freedom of expression remains suppressed in China. This belief was the trigger for bloggers' recent anger in China towards the West. Western attitudes and the anger of Chinese Generation Y indicate that Western media and Chinese Generation Y place different values on freedom of speech. For its part, Chinese Generation Y appreciates that, compared with previous generations, it is allowed considerable freedom of speech. Moreover, the freedoms currently allowed give all Chinese people more opportunities than previously to pursue personal goals. Interestingly, however, the economic freedom offered on the Internet in China has also created a modern consumerist generation that is self-regulating. That is, without centrally-organized controls, Chinese people moderate what they do and say. Foucault would describe them as operating technologies of the self (1988a). In general, then, many Chinese people seem satisfied with the current situation, which gives them limited consumer-focused freedoms within an otherwise unchanged political framework.

Because vast differences are apparent between Chinese and Western people in their understanding and experience of censorship, I reviewed the literature on censorship. I found little scholarly literature published on censorship in China, whereas censorship studies in the West have surged in the last 25 years.

The common theoretical position in the West sees all forms of censorship as limiting freedom of speech. Liberal democracies in the West, indeed, encourage and advocate freedom of expression.