Wednesday, July 20, 2011

百度百科

百度百科 or Baidu Baike is a Chinese copy of Wikipedia. Well, not quite... it's not blocked in China like Wikipedia. Like everything else on the Chinese Internet, Baidu Baike is heavily censored. The English version of Wikipedia is pretty much useless on controversial issues due to endless edit wars but Baidu Baike is even worse than useless. Check out the intro to the entry on Taiwan (translated into English by Google):
Taiwan is China's sacred territory an integral part. Historically, Taiwan has been Spain, the Netherlands, Japan has occupied. After the victory of Taiwan's return to Chinese territory. After 1949, due to reasons known to all, Taiwan and the mainland in a separate state. 50 years, Taiwan's political, economic, cultural, social undergone tremendous changes. The island of Taiwan is China's largest island, located in the southeast coast of the motherland and the continental shelf on. Taiwan, the center channel briefly the Western Pacific, China and the Pacific countries linked to important maritime hub.

The translation is not perfect but the propaganda is unmistakable. Sheesh, are the articles written by CCP members? The best line is "due to reasons known to all"... they can't even mention the 4 year Chinese Civil War?

Further down, there is a section call "A brief history" and it ends suddenly after the Ching/Qing Dynasty. The "full" history section goes a bit further and mentions the Japanese occupation and WWII but stops there as well... No mention of the KMT, no mention of elections, no mention of the DPP. The first part of the history section also states that "Taiwan's early inhabitants, the majority are from mainland China directly or indirectly, from the settlers." What utter BS... then where did A-mei and the rest of the aboriginal Taiwanese come from?

I wonder how the local Chinese view Baidu Baike? The lies and omissions are so transparent, I don't know why people bother. How do you "trust" any of the articles if crap like this is allowed to stay? Or do the Chinese people developed a blind spot to all the censorship? I think I would go crazy if I had to live there long-term.

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