Risk Assessment of My Zhiyong Series

As many people pointed out via comment and via email about my recent series of article: The Significance of Xu Zhiyong, it is very risky for anyone in China to touch the topic of Zhiyong. So it is appropriate to do a risk assessment for myself to publish the articles.

Risk about the Website

If you search for Xu Zhiyong - the name in Chinese in Google, or Baidu, there is no (zero) result. Most of the related articles have been deleted in Sina, and other websites in China. Many of the other websites outside China have been blocked in China and cannot be accessible.

Since my blog is hosted by Media Temple in United States, it is not likely that the government issues a diplomatic request for them to delete my account. However, it is 50% of chance that my blog will not be accessible from inside China, and maybe the ban is permanent. The content should be safe (I have made the backup), and access to this blog should be OK from anywhere in the world except China.

If that happens, I should still be able to publish my blog, and reply to comment. Any of my blog readers, who still don’t have a good way to access sites that is banned in China? Raise your hand and I will give you a quick jump-start guide.

I am assessing the risk to be 50% instead of 100% because I am writing in English. There is enough “harmful” information on the Internet in English and maybe they don’t care about yet another “bad” article.

Before my blog is banned completely, you can add my RSS feed to Google Reader:

http://home.wangjianshuo.com/index.xml

You should still be able to read my blog in full content with comments before Google Reader is banned.

My Personal Safety

At least now I am still “naively” thinking that it should be OK. Again, because it is in English. However, risk is already there that someone knock my door to talk with me. I have my phone number on my home page, and I am not surprised if someone makes an appointment before hand.

How about Comment?

If you live in China and don’t feel comfortable to leave a valid name or email address when you comment on these blog entries, please feel free to put anything like apple, or orange, or whatever in the name column. I am fine with it. Although I have the strict privacy policy, to be honest with you, I cannot guarantee what may happen to me and to this blog, so your comment IS at risk. To notify people so that people are aware of the risk is much better than a false commitment. Please be aware of this and make judgement yourself. However, I do want to hear your thoughts.