Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Freedom of expression is severely restricted in China, but theft of
intellectual property is extremely widespread, and virtually every-
thing is for sale, including pirated CDs, pirated computer software,
counterfeit luxury goods, illicit drugs, and the sexual services of pros-
titutes. The Chinese government sees and openly encourages
the widespread pursuit of wealth as a way of distracting the Chinese
people from demanding political reforms and democracy. The Chinese
Communists seem often to turn a blind eye to social vices but clamp
down swiftly and completely on any movement designed to secure
popular political sovereignty for the Chinese people. The government,
when it wishes, is able to exert complete control over all newspapers,
magazines, book publishers, and television and radio stations. The
Chinese Communists are currently attempting to control the flow of
information over the Internet and now block the websites of such dis-
tinguished newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and
other news sites critical of China's political repression and human
rights abuses. (The ever-resourceful Chinese people, however, easily
circumvent these restrictions by having friends outside China forward
articles to them from these sites as electronic mail.) Censorship is
mostly political but occasionally can assume a puritanical streak and
be directed against the overtly sexual written word. In May 2000 the
Chinese Communists banned the novel Shanghai Baby (Shanghai Baobei)
because of its striking depictions of sexuality and drug abuse in
Shanghai. The novel sold 80,000 copies before it was banned, but
underground copies of it were widely available to anyone, including
curious foreigners, who wanted to read what the government had
proscribed and confiscated.
China's government is technically divided into executive, legisla-
tive, and judicial branches, but in reality the executive branch wields
all significant political power. In the executive branch, China's heads
of state are the president and vice president who are “elected” to
five-year terms by the National People's Congress, China's unicameral
rubber-stamp parliament. The heads of government, on the other
hand, are the premier and several vice premiers. Members of the
cabinet, a body called the State Council, are appointed by the National
People's Congress. The Chinese people themselves have little to do
with the selection of their national leaders and must remain passive
observers of the power struggles between various factions of the
Chinese Communist party and the Chinese government it controls.
China's nominal legislative branch is the National People's
Congress. Its nearly 3,000 members are “elected” to five-year terms
by municipal, regional, and provincial people's congresses, which
