The Chronicles Of Olc:
Silver City – Education About China
Part One

September 7, 2020

Silver City residents may not realize that the availability of a number of news sources within Grant County – including the Grant County Beat – is something that is not possible in many other locales. In some places – like China – freedom of the press is simply not tolerated.

“By relying on the extensive use of new technology, President Xi Jinping [of China] has succeeded in imposing a social model in China based on control of news and information and online surveillance of its citizens,” according to a statement from Reporters Without Borders (RSF). “At the same time, he has been trying to export this oppressive model by promoting a ‘new world media order’ under China’s influence. China’s state and privately-owned media are now under the Communist Party’s close control while foreign reporters trying to work in China are encountering more and more obstacles in the field.”

The website for the organization indicated that “…RSF is an independent non-governmental organization with consultative status with the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, and the International Organization of the Francophonie.” RSF has its headquarters in Paris, France. Please note that “RSF” is based on the abbreviation of the organization’s name – “Reporters sans frontiers” – in the French language.

“More than 100 journalists and bloggers are currently detained in conditions that pose a threat to their lives,” the RSF statement continued. “Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel peace laureate and winner of the RSF Press Freedom Prize, and Yang Tongyan, a dissident blogger, both died in 2017 from cancers that were left untreated while they were detained. Under tougher Internet regulations, members of the public can now be jailed for the comments they leave on news items posted on social media or messaging services, or even just for sharing content.”

Only North Korea, Turkmenistan, and Eritrea are listed by the RSF as having worse standards for freedom of the press than China. Of 180 nations listed, the RSF ranks China as 177 on the 2020 World Press Freedom Index. (The lower the ranking, the least freedom of the press is available to people in that country.) Four Nordic nations – Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden – are listed by the RSF as having the most freedom of the press within their countries. The United States of America is ranked 45 out of the 180 nations.

This news column is the first of several news columns that will focus on other aspects of how President Xi Jinping and China implement and maintain a system that allows evil to thrive and harm the Chinese people.

(The top photo, without the text, was produced by and provided courtesy of ErikaWittlieb through Pixabay, 2015. Text was added for this news column.)

Do you have questions about China and the olc of the Chinese leadership?

How Christians are persecuted? How Muslims are “re-educated”?

How journalists are imprisoned? How members of Falun Gong are tortured?

Your questions may be used in a future news column.

Contact Richard McDonough at chroniclesofolc@mail.com.

© 2020 Richard McDonough