El Gobierno chino prepara la gran 'Enciclopedia de China' to meet the information needs of its citizens
By: Sara Perez
Wednesday 3 May 2017
Since the year 2003, China practices the Great Firewall policy to enforce Internet censorship and restrict browsing. The name of the law refers to the Great Wall of China, and in reality it is not wrong because it is a great barrier, but to culture.
Wikipedia did not escape the Great Firewall and was blocked on more than one occasion, especially in articles that referred to the Dalai Lama or President Xi Jiping. Even so, the world encyclopedia was not banned, only limited. From this limitation, a need for information arose, que ahora va a ser cubierta por el propio Gobierno comunista en la gran 'Enciclopedia de China' and which aims not only to replace Wikipedia, but overcome it. Another of the main intentions, is that the final result is twice the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
To achieve this new national epic, China does not intend for its new encyclopedia to be collaborative, but has already recruited more than 20.000 academics from universities and research institutes whose mission is to write more than 300.000 articles of 1.000 words each and about 100 different disciplines. She further , everything is expected to be ready for 2018.
The new database aims "promover la herencia histórica" y "fortalecer los valores esenciales del socialismo", just as he pointed out, Yang Muzhi, editorial chief of the project and president of the China Newspaper and Book Distribution Association told South China Morning Post.
"Va a ser una enciclopedia que guíe al público y a la sociedad", Muzhi said., que reconoció que la creación de esta enciclopedia era una decisión que se había tomado por "presión internacional".
Access to all types of websites is blocked through the Great Firewall, mainly blogs, foreign news portals and control the content that the Government considers appropriate. Now China, will have its own reference data source, although according to the Chinese activist from Amnesty International, Patrick Poon, "tan solo es un ejemplo de los intentos de China de presentar su propia versión de los acontecimientos, en particular los surgidos en la China contemporánea".
