Can China have their own Jasmine Revolution?

China's communist government has been on alert since the uprisings have begun in North Africa and the Middle East.  The are similarities between what is going on in these regions.  According to a NY Times article by Didi Kirsten Tatlow from 2/23/2011:

"Even the government concedes that China shares many of Egypt’s problems, like rampant corruption, social injustice, a growing wealth gap and inflation."

Since all of Chinese media is state run they have controlled  over what is being written and shown about the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.  It was strange looking and searching different Chinese news websites and not seeing the same kind of coverage about the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa as you would see in privately owned media. 

 

 Comparing the world pages for Africa and the unrest in Libya in both Chinese traditional media and American traditional media the information presented in the two different news media are very different.  The reports in the Chinese media are done by reporters employed by the state so they write what the Chinese government will let them.  The uprisings in Libya in China Daily are written showing the side of the government as protectors of their country and that the protesters are insurgents.  By having their reporters cover the story in this way they try to downplay the importance of the people coming together to bring about change in the corrupt government that runs their state.  The main thing that the Chinese media is focusing on is how they evacuated Chinese tourists from Egypt and now how they are getting Chinese out of Libya.  In China's coverage of the uprisings in the Middle East Chinese media emphasizes the uncertainty of these movements and how they are creating nothing but chaos in these regions.  In an article from Time.com by Austin Ramzy from Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011 wrote:

"The struggle for democracy against tyranny is not the focus of China's news coverage of Egypt's turmoil. Instead, much of the state-run media is devoting itself to the story of how the Chinese government arranged for eight flights last week to take home 1,848 stranded citizens. One returning traveler, upon receiving a bouquet of flowers in the Beijing airport, declared, "Thank the motherland!" according to a Xinhua story."

In Chinese media there is also no metion of the call for protests that have gone out in China.  On a Chinese-language website Boxun based in the United States an anonymous call for "jasmine rallies" in thirteen Chinese cities went out.  Boxum is a news bulletin board for Chinese who are overseas and it is block in China by its internet firewall.  Since this site is blocked in China it is  unclear as to how many people in China saw this call for peaceful protest.  As a precaution China's government has placed blocks on keywords such as "Jasmine Revolution", Egypt and Tunisia in internet searches.

Many believe that an uprising happening in China like the ones in North Africa and the Middle East are not possible because of the tight control the Chinese government has on the media and the internet.  It is also said that because the Chinese economy is booming unlike the poor state economies of those countries where uprising are happen, that the people will not rise up against their government.  In an article in the Washinton Post by Keith B. Richburg he spoke to Nicholas Bequelin, researcher for Human Rights Watch's Asia division based in Hong Kong:

"He said he believed the leadership, while clearly nervous, did not feel threatened by the possibility of protests here, because China has a successful economy compared with the Middle Eastern and North African countries currently dealing with popular unrest."

It will interesting to see in the coming days if China will be able to start a revolution like those in the Middle East and North Africa when the government has such tight control over the old media and the new media.