--- Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)ctelco.net> wrote:
Oh, yes, he does! You just havn't tangled with him
before. However
in the
context of this discussion I took his suggestion as made in good
faith as a
way to maintain access to Wikipedia in China.
Fred
From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales"
<jwales(a)wikia.com>
Reply-To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 02:45:12 -0700
To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] wikipedia in China
Christopher Mahan wrote:
> Yes, if every other article is about failure of this and
breakdown of
> that, with Falung and Commies and Free Tibet
all over the place,
I
>> would shut it down too.
>
> Surely you don't mean that.
>
> --Jimbo
First, Jimbo, I lived in France, and hold french citizenship. France
and China have much better relationships with each other than america
dreams of. My ant worked for a company that sold nuclear reactors to
china in 1982.
Were a bunch or rubbish be written about a great (not perfect)
country on an purportedly international, NPOV encyclopedia, and
people were adamant that it was the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, I would feel ashamed and pull the plug myself,
hiding away and hoping people would forget my name.
I personally know two mainland chinese. Both are highly educated,
cultured, calm and reliable people. I like them much better than some
of my american friends. Their country has few true friends, and
they've beasically been pulling themselves by their bootstraps for
the last 50 years.
The chinese government has realized many years ago that hardline
communism is a dead-end. Yet they also know that if they don't
present a unified front, a unified face, the world will walk all over
them. So they are tought. They appear tough. They want people to
think them tough.
Remember that if PyongYang's nukes can reach Tokyo, they can reach
Beijing. The chinese know this, and they're flexing their muscles
there too.
China is a very large country with 20% of the world's people. They
don't give a damn about our little competition with Brittanica. They
don't give a damn about Wikipedia. They are fighting prejudice, fear,
and misunderstanding on a grander scale, at the UN, in the WTO, and
off their coast, with jetfighters.
They do not want to play hardball with us. They have bigger fish to
fry. But if we start interfering with their plans for bringing china
in the 21st century as a world power and player on an equal footing
with the US and Europe, they will cut us off. And I would agree with
them.
All I know is that if Wikipedia is fair and balanced, showing in
thousands of articles the true face of china today, then the Chinese
government will find no reason to block us, and in fact may
participate.
=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com
chris.mahan(a)gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/
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