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Tea Leaves

Why moral outrage is scarce in China

Many citizens know what is happening in their country, but choose not to care

People at a Beijing railway station use their smartphones to watch President Xi Jinping deliver a speech at a military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.   © Reuters

Decades of observing and visiting China have taught me that citizens who want to know what is happening in their country and beyond can be reasonably well informed, despite the "Great Internet Firewall," the pervasive censorship, the propaganda-as-news, and blocking of foreign news outlets and social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

This conclusion was confirmed on a recent trip to a provincial northeastern city, in my conversations with ordinary people. In one striking encounter, a businessman -- not an intellectual, writer or human rights lawyer -- gave me well-informed, sophisticated views on recent history and current events, including opinions that were clearly not derived from China's official sources.

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