Chinese government websites: do not visit!

Well, that is what Chinese government gives you as a message.
Try: http://www.bjgaj.gov.cn/eng/

Good luck. What I understand, the websites are tailored to be visited only by Windows users (how much were they paid for that?). Use Apple and you are out of luck.
Now, how more short-sighted can that be? As a webmaster I even wonder how they managed that filtering in their web design.
We already are living in an Intranet in China, not Internet. Isolated from the world, unable to reach the most important websites one needs for research and business. And forget many of the international email platforms, blocked in China.
In other words:

  • China does not welcome foreign business people, if they come here they are supposed to limit themselves to China Daily, Global Times (worse!) and sterile CCTV news. No more contact with the outside world; no more emails;
  • Chinese people should not know what is REALLY going on in the world;
  • Chinese people, the less they know, the better;
  • Think twice before outsourcing your web design to a “Chinese” company.

Unless of course you think Baidu delivers “information”. I had a hilarious moment with a Chinese friend looking up the word “horny” on Baidu. He found it was well, some rough skin stuff. I explained it was not really that meaning…
Oh well. China says it opens the door more and more. They forgot to say they installed double glass in the doorways, so the “flies” will not come in.
There are still many naïve foreigners who did not get it. Until they sit in their 5-star hotel and can’t open gmail.
I just wonder what all those hundreds of thousand of Chinese who study and travel abroad think when returning home. And are back in their isolation.
So, when the government talks about “innovation and creativity”, allow me to become cynical.

And this sarcastic comment from Sinocism:
“Mark Zuckerberg’s Donation Spurs Philanthropy Debate in China – China Real Time Report – WSJ – One of the jokes going around is that the announcement must be fake because when a PRC user tries to find Facebook their browser says the site does not exist…”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *