gagged
Foreigners and self-censorship.
It is surprising how often I find foreigners who are more scared of the Chinese authorities than many Chinese are. People who fought fascism and campaigned against apartheid without hesitating to think of their personal safety seem to think that I should keep my mouth shut if I want to carry on working in China, without considering the price of surrendering liberty
But it should not be, because not long ago I was also much more cautious about speaking my mind. I never expressed my personal views, even when I heard Chinese criticise their government, I tried to think of a polite answer. But in 2009 an article I had written on sport sponsorship was censored by the Shanghai propaganda authorities, and I felt I had reached the limit of my tolerance. After years of learning Chinese, working for the Society for Anglo Chinese Understanding and excepting everything China through at me, I had had enough. I had spent two weeks writing the article without payment, simply for the publicity I thought it would bring my company\'s breast cancer charity sponsorship event. The only controversial argument in the article was that China\'s sport sponsorship market is constrained by state control of the media.
This last straw came after I had been wrongly advised by local lawyers not to sign an employment contract with my company, which resulted in my losing my job, my visa and my right to stay in China. I was left without any legal recourse. The stress caused me to lose my memory, and I suspected a mini-stroke, but the company had not been required to provide any medical cover for me. I had spent months applying for the work visa, even submitting myself to an HIV test in the knowledge that if I tested positive I would be booted out of China permanently. And all this happened just months after the Chinese government suddenly and arbitrarily suspended access to China for foreign residents of Hong Kong like myself by withdrawing multiple entry visa access.
In the summer of 2009 we also lived through the farcical attempt of the government to install censorship software on all new PCs manufactured in China. This they abandoned after it was discovered that the code was stolen. Then at the end of the year they resumed executions of foreigners and sentenced Liu Xiaobo to 11 years for his Charter 08 call for political reform. In the aftermath, they kidnapped and bullied his supporters into silence, and sent me a trojan horse virus after they found my email on a PC they had confiscated. I was impressed by the bravery of many Chinese who continued to speak out in the face of this repression, and when I learned that it is rare to be visa-blacklisted, I decided to speak my mind in future too. After all, I have so much less to lose than them and it would be no great loss if I could no longer visit China. There are so much better places to visit. I would miss only my friends
This photo was taken on 2011-08-17 at China