China Week

I've been watching bits of the BBC's China Week and generally reading lots about China on their site and around the web. I am really interested in Chinese politics and culture and how that part of the world appears to be growing.

This morning I watched the special edition of Question Time from China. It seems to have been heralded as a major success, the first time that a foregn news organisation has come to the country to talk openly about Chinese politics. As people keep saying, this would never have happened 15 or even perhaps 5 years ago. The show has been broadcast on BBC ONE, the internet and on the global channel BBC World.

So, after reading all the uptalk about it, I was a bit disappointed to read an entry earlier today from the Berkley China Digital News blog with the headline China censors BBC World, again. Basically it seems that a good few of the China Week programmes are being blocked by the Chinese cable broadcast system. "For example, a report on restive Muslim Uighur ethnic group in China's far west was cut off after just seconds of starting to air. According to international
media reports, the screen went black after a BBC correspondent said, " But the Uighur people have little affection for their Chinese masters.”

Heard a particularly interesting item this morning on Radio 5 Live's Julian Warwicker programme talking about how Chinese people are a hidden minority in Britain which also interested me: lots of Chinese people around but no umbrella force through which to try to make their collective mark on British society like other ethnic minorities. Don't know enough about this but got me thinking because it does seem that this is the case.

There is more on the site: Five Live in China. Also just seen that Julian has his own blog which I'll take a look at in a bit.