Chinese TV Airs Protester Throwing Shoe at Premier; POLS 495

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Tuesday night aired the full news footage of a protester throwing a shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during a speech in Great Britain. The incident itself was very alarming, but it was also highly unusual that the state-sponsored news station would air such an event. Considering that the shoe-throwing could be seen as a sign of disrespect, most people would expect the Chinese government to stop the media from showing it. This could go to show that the government is becoming more lax in its control of the media. However, this progress still seems to be slow because the government deleted a number of online posts in China reacting to the event. Therefore, it is hard to completely tell how citizens viewed what had happened. China is allowing more and more freedom to its people, but more work is still needed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/03/AR2009020300293.html