Global Times says Egypt’s future debated by the West

Global Times, January 31, 2011

The Chinese edition of today’s Global Times declares that the West is trying to decide which direction Egypt is going!

The sub-headline is Some people want Mubarak to go; Some people are worried the Middle East will collapse.

World censorship blog aggregator Global Voices Online records the microblog censorship of the Chinese characters for Egypt (埃及) and Cairo (开罗). It emerged today that using pinyin and English were still OK.

On the two different approaches, the Wall Street Journal reports:

China’s state media have provided limited coverage of the unrest in Egypt, including the scores of reported deaths, the cutting of Internet and cellphone access, and President Hosni Mubarak’s appointment of a vice president. Most newspapers, television stations and news portals have stuck closely to the official Xinhua reports, which they have not featured prominently, while refraining from independent reporting or commentary.

One of the only exceptions was the Global Times, a popular tabloid published by China’s Communist Party, which said in a commentary in English and Chinese on Sunday that “color revolutions” couldn’t achieve real democracy.

The headline surrounded by purple is about a “King of Gambling” Stanley Ho who has “moved” Macau because of his splitting of his huge fortune to his family.