Green Dam, the Party capitulates - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff by Fantake via Flickr

Tom Doctoroff, North Asia Area Director of JWT advertising firm, describes in The Huffington Post the decision to at least delay the compulsory censorship software Green Dam on PC's shipped in China as an unique capitulation of the Communist Party. De decision was published at the official newswire Xinhua just hours before midnight, when the regulation would have been in force.
The central government had crossed a line by upsetting its closest supporters, Tom Doctoroff argues:

I have often argued that China, a Confucian society that cherishes order and stability as the prerequisite for individual and national advancement, does not crave bottom-up representative democracy. Furthermore, most Chinese have confidence in the ability of the central government - as opposed to local and provincial organs - to advance the interests of the majority. As the financial crisis sweeps across the globe, citizens are impressed with their leaders' far-sightedness. From aggressive stimulative policy to announced welfare reforms, most Chinese believe their country will emerge stronger than ever on the global stage once the tsunami recedes. In marked contrast to the Japanese, the Chinese people have faith in the wisdom of their rulers.

But that faith is not blind.

But it is also not the beginning of the end of the Party, Doctoroff says further.

China will become more "democratic" but not in an electoral sense, at least not within the next couple decades.

Societies do evolve. And China continues on its own journey to become a modern nation, with a government accountable for its behavior. But the contours of the Middle Kingdom's political structure will always assume the shape of its distinct worldview.

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Tom Doctoroff is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you want him at your conference? Do let us know.

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