http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/10/07/netizens-react-premiers-interview-censored/


China Realtime Report

October 7, 2010, 12:39 AM HKT

Netizens React: Premier’s Interview Censored

An official news blackout in China surrounding Premier Wen
Jiabao’s interview over the weekend with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria hasn’t kept it
from becoming one of the hottest topics on the Chinese Internet. If anything,
censorship has only made it hotter—possibly giving Wen additional political
clout in the process.

“The longer the newspapers refuse to report it, the more
need there is for us to discuss it vigorously,” one user on Sina Weibo,
Sina.com’s popular Twitter-like micro-blogging service, wrote about the
interview.

“Sunlight at last!” wrote another on the website of Phoenix
TV, one of the few online sites that published a Chinese summary
of the interview.

The exclusive interview,
Wen’s first with a Western journalist since he spoke with Zakaria in
2008
on CNN, began spreading through the Chinese Internet almost as soon as
it was posted online.

Already a popular figure among the masses at home, Wen has
been making waves in and outside of China recently by openly discussing
political reform, including on a visit
to Shenzhen in August during which he predicted China’s economic reforms would
eventually fail without reforms to the country’s political system (in
Chinese
).

Speaking through a translator to Zakaria, Wen was calm and
measured throughout the interview, and clearly came prepared on the topic of
reform, sidestepping a challenge from Zakaria on censorship with a nevertheless
strong statement in support of greater freedom.

“I believe I and all the Chinese people have such a
conviction that China will make continuous progress and the people’s wishes for
and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible,” Wen said. “I hope that
you will be able to gradually see the continuous progress of China.”

Later, addressing allegations that he has yet to walk the
reform he talks about, he says: “I would like to tell you the following two
sentences to reinforce my case on this or my view on this point, that is, I
will not fall in spite of a strong wind and harsh rain and I will not yield
till the last day of my life.”

There has been skepticism about whether Wen’s comments
in recent months really herald a new reform era. But on China’s Internet, an
outpouring of support for Wen followed quickly after bilingual Chinese-English transcripts of the interview
began appearing.

“If this is real, and if it’s needed, I’ll give my life,
too,” wrote “Andrianme” on Sina Weibo.

“The three great men of the last century: Sun Yat-sen, Mao
Zedong and Deng Xiaoping,” read a post that had earned more than 11,000
‘recommend’ clicks on the Phoenix TV site as of this writing. “If Premier Wen
can really push through political reform, he’ll be the first great man of the
new century.”

Information about the interview on the Chinese Internet
appears to come almost exclusively from Phoenix TV, blogs and micro-blogging
services like Sina Weibo. News portals in China are running a commentary
on the interview from the official Liberation Daily newspaper that manages not to
quote Wen at all, focusing instead on the differences in Zakaria’s questions
from 2008 and 2010.

The irony of Wen’s statements on freedom and censorship
being censored in official media was not lost on Chinese observers.

“A lot of Chinese people don’t know their premier has been
harmonized,” prominent Beijing University Internet researcher Hu Yong wrote on
Twitter, using the Chinese euphemism for censorship. “Wen Jiabao’s comments
about political reform being censored at least tells us one thing: In front of
the big wall, everyone is equal.”

Others, like ‘Idle Notes,’ responded to the news blockage
with anger: “The entire world gets to hear our premier speak and our own media
doesn’t report it? Whatever you refuse to report, I’ll just post. [Expletive] you
propagandists for the Imperial Court!”

While the vast majority of the commentary on Wen’s
interview—or what little of it people in China saw—was adulatory, some remained
skeptical of the premier’s ability to make good on his rhetoric.

“Let’s not be too naïve here. Who stands to lose the most
from political reform?” Sina user ‘Big Uncle 98’ wrote in thinly veiled
reference to leaders in Beijing. “Do you think they’ll dig their own graves?…
Do you think they’re not afraid they’ll eventually be held to account?”

A post by ‘Own Worst Enemy,’ one of the most popular on
Sina Weibo, may have put it best: “It’s not easy being Premier.”

– Josh
Chin. Follow him on Twitter@ch_infamous