Ok, just go read a book about population theory or something, this hijack is too long 
— G. Raven
Just a fun fact for you. China does ban a fair number of webpages such as geocities. However, I’m still able to get the Straight Dope.
You can call the Chinese government backward primitives, but you know what, they are still in power, so they must be doing something right to retain the “mandate of heaven.” You try managing an office much less 1.3 billion people, then come back and give us your opinion on the leadership of China.
HIJACK
Let’s go way out on a limb in fighting ignorance, human rights in China are improving and at their highest level ever historically. That said, I will admit that further improvements are needed. For that matter, the Chinese government themselves admit that further improvements are needed, and human rights here are in fact improving. [sheesh, man, never thought I’d have to take this side of the arguement.]
It’s come up a few times before, I’ll repeat it here: the Chinese government is instituting economic reform before political reform. They want to avoid what happened to the former USSR, which carried out massive political reform without an adequate economic machinery in place to support it.
Think about it, the old guard “communists” are getting, well, old. They know the way of the past is not the way of the future, and they know the younger generations want reform. It’s being arranged, primarily through economic means, and the politics will come later. It is unacceptable for political reform to take place before economic reform, and the Chinese still crack down on dissidence, subversion, etc., precisely because they don’t want to be out of power before the economic machinery is built. China is a country where being in power and saying the wrong thing can cost you your life–keep that in mind next time you see Zhu Rongji in the news.
Heck, if you go to China today you will notice things you never thought about the country. It’s a matter of misconception and lack of information.