Legalism is a opinion system that surfaced in Ancient China during the time of the Warring Claims (771-221 B. C. ), during which several viewpoints for reestablishing peacefulness within China were contending pursuing societal disorder. It had been an approach identified by extreme methods, goals, and rigid adherence to legislations. Under this politics philosophy, human characteristics was regarded as evil and for that reason heavy restraints were to be placed on humans. The laws established during this time period were meant to be easily understandable, punishments threatening, and rewards quick so that individuals made a decision to do exactly what the federal government asked of these(Major). Under legalism, an extremely effective and powerful administration was believed to be fundamental to preserving steadiness. Any disobedience was to be achieved with harsh punishments to make it less attractive for individuals to prefer to get disobedient, as the well execution of duties by people was to be rewarded to encourage such complying habit. It had been not until Shi Huangdi came up to the throne in 246 B. C. , have Legalist ideology gain favor and actually be implemented in China. The first emperor used 4 methods to rule and unify China effectively, of which were centralization, standardization, censorship, and human being rights abuse. One of these procedures, censorship, helped complete its goal of unifying China by discouraging the existence of controversy which decreases the integration of population. Censorship can be an important indicator for the presence of Legalism and it seems apparent that this has increased from Ancient China in terms of difficulty. While Modern China, no more reflects the scope to which Legalism has been common in Old China, it, a country that lacks press freedom, is still imprinted with the key aspects associated with this school of thought.
Censorship is the practice of officially analyzing books, videos, written works, and other things in order to suppress undesirable or objectionable parts. The purpose of this is to discourage view that may be detrimental to the government and can cause controversy. In Ancient China, Legalist used censorship to regulate ideas, activities, and people's tendencies. The best way they showed use of it was by placing your order a marketing campaign in 213 B. C. for confiscating and losing catalogs in private hands which were harmful toward the federal government (Major). Another much more serious action that illustrates the back-then use of censorship was Huangdi's burial of Confucian scholars alive in the capital after studying their dissent toward his plans. Therefore, censorship allowed people that go against the federal government at all or brought on disputes in contemporary society to be easily removed. Without the amount of censorship, people can be easily persuaded by materials used to mention opinion and the federal government would face difficulty in managing its citizens.
Today, the "Great Firewall of China" is the technology that the Chinese language authorities uses to prevent access to materials it finds improper on the internet (Olesen). Chinese Internet users are restricted with this from getting the freedom to see certain search results fully, have conversations on certain subject matter, and to be able to express any comments freely. According to a academics cooperative, "China has the world's 'most innovative' internet filtering system, " and the "Chinese federal government. . . is probably the world's best at controlling what's people see" (Wiseman). That is because of the Chinese government's intolerance of dissent that may be easily found when enjoying information on the web. Internet liberty is important because as President Obama explained, "a lot more freely information flows, the more robust the modern culture becomes, because then residents of countries around the world can hold their own governments responsible" (Scherer). The Chinese language federal government would be more likely to disagree and seemingly wants their citizens to be constrained as on the internet to lessen their ability and influence, to make the government better and dominating over them as during the Legalist era when individuals were represented as powerless, insignificant administration workers. Being able to access data on sensitive as well as controversial subject matter is difficult with the Chinese language monitoring all incoming and outgoing traffic on the web. A good example of a specialized search engine for China that filters results effectively on such issues is Yahoo China. With this website, when users enter "Tiananmen Square, " they will get only the vacationer images of the area and not the images of the 1989 protests for democratic reform there that finished up in a violent crackdown by the Chinese language federal government (Wiseman). This reveals how the Chinese government is reluctant to get certain information online since it may be used to persuade them to take blame for something; the federal government tries to act as if less in charge of a meeting that went incorrect when they recently intervened in it. Therefore, China uses "propaganda representatives" who send out "teams of commentators to create patriotic messages on websites and online bulletin boards" to encourage the pass on of nationalist judgment and/or positive responses by residents to the government (Edward). This can help show the way the government tries to cover information it feels shouldn't be distributed to information that's more likely to encourage good attitude toward the federal government.
Censorship attempts are also seen on television in China, where they are being used to limit overseas ideas swaying residents. Because the press is not privatized, but been able by the federal government, the government has more vitality than residents and has the capacity to force media stations to only use "approved" news reports alternatively than any criticizing China's government (Haugen). Publishing or broadcasting on tv set whatever is distasteful to the Chinese language government is unlawful in the country and can result in imprisonment (Haugen). Again, these regulations help protect the Chinese language government more than the government's residents, which could have been backed by the Legalists. A good example of Television censorship that took place this month was during Chief executive Obama's visit to China. After North american officials negotiated to have the Chinese reserve live nationwide broadcast time for the president's town hall with Chinese language university student, China still refused to follow their requests, and the event was shown later on Television (Scherer). This offered time for Chinese language officials to change the speech. If the president addressed the earth in his inaugural and come to a lines in his conversation explaining communism, the live broadcast in China was take off and later versions of the speech got this part censored (Edward). Another lines edited spoke to countries that imposed censorship policies to prevent criticism of their government. China might have censored such presidential responses to lessen the effect from Western ideals and to filter any sort of persuasion that may cause its residents to do activities other ethnicities support but are unwelcome in China as they break with traditional Chinese values. This advises China still has a hint of isolationism attitude toward other nations as it did have in the Legalist era and doesn't want to blend in with other countries as blending in would fade away traditional guidelines. Censorship is used to prevent Chinese language residents from complying with other nations apart from China.
Although the viewpoint of Legalism isn't prevailing as it was in Ancient China, the heavy presence of press censorship on the web, television, and on international ideas, in China today, discloses that there is still a prolonged impact from legalism that can observed. If there wasn't any existence of Legalism, then, modern Chinese government would have been greatly different as residents would have a lot more power than the federal government. Nonetheless it isn't in a country that lacks essential multimedia freedom.
Bibliography
- Edward, Jonathan Ansfield. "Chinese Tv set Censors Portion of Address by Obama. " The New York Times. 22 Jan. 2009. 13 Nov. 2009.
- Haugen, David M. China: Opposing Viewpoints. Farmington Hillsides: Greenhaven, 2006.
- Major, John S. The Land and folks of China. Lippincott, 1989.
- Olesen, Alexa. "Chinese Censors Block Obama's Call to Free Web. " Time. 16 Nov. 2009. 19 Nov. 2009.
- Scherer, Michael. "Could Obama BYPASS China's 'Great Firewall'?" Time. 16 Nov. 2009. 19 Nov. 2009.
- Wiseman, Paul. " Breaking the 'Great Firewall' of China's Web Censorship. " USA Today. 23 Apr. 2008. 13 Nov. 2009.
