James Fallows

Late last night, after my short piece questioning James Fallows' take on the censorship of the inaugural address, I decided to shoot off an email to Mr. Fallows, summarizing my different ideas on the issue. To my pleasant surprise, he just responded:

"Thanks for your note – it’s an interesting hypothesis, and you could be right. The fact that People’s Daily later printed the full, uncensored text would suggest the opposite – that the CCTV people didn’t have time to think through the decision and just panicked. But, who knows! Best wishes Jim Fallows"

I wasn't aware of the full translation in the People's Daily, but Fallows blogged about it earlier today and concluded:

"... it's enough to suggest that the major official newspaper felt confident conveying the gist of what Obama was saying, even though the broadcasters apparently panicked in real time. This is illustration #3,287 of why it's tricky to say that "China" or "the Chinese" or even "the Chinese regime" will behave in a certain way. Different parts of it respond different ways in different circumstances."

I couldn't have said it better myself.