From The Christian Science Monitor:
Not only has a rapidly growing market economy created more disgruntled groups, it’s created the means for them to organize and express their grievances, either to journalists or through open protest. The Leninists in the party must still believe that century-old tactics of suppression can be beefed up to curb these modern threats to their top-down rule and information monopoly. Perhaps they can for a while, but the tide of history and the inexorable flow of news is against them. Unpleasant facts about official abuse or man-made environmental disasters cannot be hidden for long these days.
As China further opens itself to the world, such as hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics, the party will find it can’t turn back the tide of history that will lead to more freedom of information, not less. [Full Text]
