China’s changing – quietly

I was in Beijing last weekend and, having heard about the “Great Firewall of China”, I typed ‘Tiananmen Square’ into Google. I was surprised to find the Wikipedia page describing the 1989 massacre – complete with image of the iconic ‘Tank Man’. Just six months ago, this page was unavailable.

The Chinese government isn’t making a song and dance about this.  Combine this with the fact that more and more Chinese children are now learning English and an ever increasing number of young Chinese adults are coming to study in the west and you can see that glasnost is taking place even if it hasn’t been announced to the world.  Considering the Russian model led to the collapse of communist rule – and Russia’s subsequent path has been rocky at best – perhaps the Chinese are right to let freedom slip out little by little.