Cautious public praise for Obama's China visit
- Source: Global Times
- [21:21 November 15 2009]
- Comments
Rao Jin, an Internet entrepreneur and founder of anti-cnn.com, a grass-roots online forum established after the March 14 protest in Tibet in 2008
Most of my friends care about Sino- US relations, but not deeply. I personally have positive expectations of Obama's visit – but not that high.
Like many young people in China, I watch US TV series and log onto US websites, like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. A question keeps haunting me – is the information my friends and I put on these websites safe? Will our information be easily snatched especially within the circumstance of tense international relations?
We see from TV series like Prison Break that agents from US intelligence agencies like the CIA have such great powers that they can easily acquire someone's private information, and even make the person disappear.
Admittedly, this is fiction. Nevertheless, such things do take place in reality. In the US, fierce debates are going on over how to provide detailed protection of privacy – since they are still tangled with their own problem, why are they qualified to arrogantly criticize Internet usage in China?
The cultural values of the two countries are different. The Chinese advocate common efforts and common victory, whereas Americans upheld heroism – it's often an individual hero who saves the mankind and the entire world.
According to my surveys and observations, a great number of Chinese youth still has a simplified and beautified perspective toward the US and other Western countries.
I often ask many college students to use one adjective to describe other countries, and the answers are astonishingly unanimous – "open"or "free"US, "gentle"Britain, "romantic"France and "efficient"Germany.
I hope anti-cnn. com will develop into a real grass-roots media source in the future, providing information for multiple fields besides political news and guiding more reasonable Internet communication.
