The respected Chinese blogger Hong Bo, known as Keso, last week posted a question to an online discussion forum in China. “If one day Taiwan goes independent,” he wrote, “what harm will it do to us?”
That is a sensitive topic in a country that still treats Taiwan as a breakaway province. Shortly after Keso raised the point, the discussion was cut short. His online censor wasn’t the notorious “Great Firewall of China,” the filtering software put in place by the Chinese government to stifle online dissent. Rather, Keso was reprimanded by another writer in the general-interest forum. “No discussion of politics here!” his fellow netizen insisted. ”
In China, people are not in the habit of expressing their ideas very publicly,” says Keso. [Full Text]
[Image source: Isaac Mao and Hong Bo, from Duowei.com]