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I live in China, teach English here ...

Are you using a proxy server to connect to FreeRepublic ? I would think that is one site name the Chinese censors would block !!!

I lived in Shanghai for two years unitl beginning of this year, never had trouble accessing FR. The Chinese are not particularily interested in blocking foreign sites in non-Chinese language. Most of the censoring is on the Chinese language sites.

No proxy. Occasionally I have to use a proxy to get to some web sites but for the most part I get anywhere I want.

When there is some big news about China that is bad I will have a day or two of problems getting to Fox News or Drudge. But really no big probs. Funny, they seem to be more interested in blocking GEOsites. Never can get to any of those.

I really am on the fence of this issue. After living in China I have found, for the most part, I don't see the government. One of the main things that keeps China from uniting against the government is the fact that none of them speak the same language. Yes many will say that Mandarin is the language. Well I speak some Mandarin and most of the people I talk to don't. Every city, every village, every province has their own language. They call it a "dialect" but it is much more then that. Its not just pronouncing words differently, ITS A DIFFRENT LANGAUGAGE. Most Chinese can not talk to each other.

I am sure the government like this. If you cant speak to your neighbor then you cant get together on something you both don't like.

You also have to realize that there are 3 China's. You have the Coastal China which is a lot more western and free. This is the part of China that is running the economy. Then you have the central/farmer China. They are not benefiting to much from the economic rise of China. There is a lot of dissatisfaction with it. Most of your anti-government protest are coming from here. Unfortunately though they are saying the government is not Socialist enough.

Then you have Western China which has a lot of Muslim citizens. To my surprise, Muslims seem to comprise a large portion of China. I can not walk 2 blocks without seeing Muslim restaurant or mosques. Seems the Muslims on the coastal areas are "good China Muslims" they have been walked on by the government for so long they are afraid to do anything.

The Western Muslims however are still VERY *.stan Muslims. The government has to continually watch them.

Now the argument that Taiwan speaks Chinese so they should be part of China is just stupid. I wont re-argue the "I speak English I should be a citizen of the UK"

The real (paraphrased history) is this.

Sometimes Taiwan was part of China, Sometimes it was its own country and sometimes it belonged to Japan.

China and Japan fought a war at the first part of the 20th centrury. Not sure the exact dates but I think somewhere around 1913 China signed Taiwan over to Japan. After WW2 Japan freed Taiwan. They did not give it back to China but gave it back to itself. So when the KMT "INVADED" Taiwan they did not consider themselves part of China. At the time Neither did Tibet or Mongolia.

My Chinese friends will say "well that government wasn't a good government so we don't recognize that treaty with Japan" They don't say it didn't happen they just say it should be erased. By that argument, any country that used to own another country could reclaim that country on the basis that they now think that government was bad. It was a legal treaty, a treaty recognized by the world.

So China really has no legitimate claim on Taiwan. Yes they have the same Character words. But Japan uses those same characters. No one claims that Japan belongs to China. China has a 5000 year history, or so they claim. During this history sometimes China has been big, sometimes small. What is really China. They don't speak Chinese in Tibet, They don't speak Chinese in Mongolia. Why then does China claim these. Because they had a big enough army and no one tried to stop them. Its hypocritical to use the "they speak the same language" argument for Taiwan and then not argue that Tibet and Mongolia should be free because they don't speak the same language.