China's Thought Police Aid Taiwan Independence

ESWN has an article on the internal politics of internet control in China whose writer is using Taiwan independence as a foil to attack certain government organs. ESWN writes:

[Permalink] How The Central Publicity Department Is Accelerating Taiwan Independence (03/05/2006) The front-page subject of this week's Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly) was on the ramifications of the Freezing Point incident. In the feature article (partially translated in Critical Reading In China), the theory was advanced that the unofficial Critical Reading group is allowed to function because it offers plausible deniability to the senior government leaders. Thus, when something goes wrong, the senior leaders can step in to reverse the decision and show that they are decent and tolerant (see Comment 200603#004). But the problem is that something can go terribly wrong, as in the case of Freezing Point when Lung Yingtai published the open letter to Hu Jintao: Please Use Civilization To Convince Us. Now all of a sudden, the unification of China-Taiwan is bundled with the freedom of speech issue in China. This is made explicit in the YZZK editorial statement for this issue (via ChineseNewsNet):

The letter says:

ESWN translation] The Chinese thought police are the best friends of the Taiwan independence folks. They destroy the image of openness and reform in mainland China and they allow the forces of Taiwan independence to become bigger. Does political power affect thinking, or does thinking influence political power? That is a tricky debate, and a challenge that China faces right now.

The intellectuals and media in China today have actually gone past the control of the official news organizations. Following the rapid development of economic and social forces and communication technologies, Chinese society has developed it own communication network. SMS, email, blogs, MSN and Skype (free from eavesdropping and firewall-penetrating), the traditional Leninist "Thought Police" is no longer in control ...

These "Thought Police" are the best friends of the Taiwan independence. The more media organizations are shut down in China, the stronger the Taiwan independence movement grows. They can justifiably claim that the freedom of expression is so backwards that Taiwan society cannot possibly consider unification with China as an option.

Here's a clue: even a democratic China probably would not be much use in garnering the support of current TI-ers for annexing Taiwan to China. Why would anyone in their right mind, who already possesses a robust local democracy and strong local identity, want to become the property of a faraway capital with little interest or knowledge of local needs, however democratic?

[Taiwan] [China] [Taiwan Independence]