The Martyrdom of Chang Ping

How to find the truth about Lhasa?

Chang Ping’s Blog

Chang Ping Fired

English Summary on CDT

Damn, I actually kinda liked this guy’s writing. Or maybe ESWN just did a really good job translating. But whatever, I mean even though he won’t be able to write for an official media source, he’s still got a blog. In some ways, he’s less restricted in what he writes about on that and he won’t have to worry so much about that ’self-censorship’ that he’s been battling.

But I think he’ll be able to make a come-back. He’s got name recognition these days for being controversial and I’m sure somebody will want to pick him up. And he had a pretty high position at the Southern Metropolis Daily, which isn’t exactly a tiny, unknown newspaper in China either. I get the feeling that since there’s a decent number of supporters for this guy and the CCP seems to moving away from stoking the flames of nationalism, he’ll probably be back at some left-wing academic journal and continue writing for the Chinese audience.

Or he can just get a bunch of press freedom awards from the west and martyr himself like Hu Jia, but I don’t think that’ll do much good for China. Once a reformist or activist moves over to the west, they totally lose all their ’street cred’ in the mainland. He’ll be much less influential since he’ll be seen as an ‘imperialist running-dog’ and a mouthpiece for fat white foreigners. It’s like that one chick from Duke. It was bad enough that she didn’t conform to Chinese views, but to give all these interviews and write articles for western media sources? That’s like a young black man leaving the ghetto to live in the suburbs with a white picket fence or a punk rocker who becomes a devoted fan of Avril Lavigne.

So for the good of progress (and Chang Ping’s mental/emotional health), I think it would be best if he just sticks to China as the geographical location of whatever occupation he chooses next.