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The Earnshaw Vault
Careless talk to foreignersPosted by Jeremy Goldkorn, April 24, 2008 9:31 AM
Graham Earnshaw was the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Beijing from 1980 to 1984, and he's been looking through his clippings, which seem to prove both that China has changed completely and also that China has stayed exactly the same. This spring and summer, Danwei will be publishing a series of these reports from the past. This is today's resurrected item: ‘Careless Talk’ Warning The Peking Workers Daily told readers at the weekend not to reveal state secrets to foreigners. They “When talking with foreign guests, political discussion should be avoided. When certain questions come up which require an answer, be precise, brief and reserved,” the paper said.
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Comments on Careless talk to foreigners
"They should be friendly but oppose servility and anything “which injures Chinese integrity.”"
I am waiting for cases when people are charged, jailed, or worse, for violating this instruction real soon now.
When you tell people that you have eaten could be interpreted as "servility", and you you say "No, I haven't yet" could be "release of state secret" and therefore "injures Chinese integrity".
For Mao's sake, certainly don't tell anyone there were migrant workers in Beijing. That's surely a state secret.