The Burmese government's announcement on Monday to end press censorship put China's media in a tricky spot. Lillian Lin notes that the People's Daily was "fairly evenhanded," but that the more nationalistic Global Times came down harder:
In an editorial on Tuesday, it said China should never follow Myanmar’s model…. "China has been on the track of liberalizing the press for a long time, and will go further in the future," it read. "We should proceed based on the national situation, instead of being panicked and making backwards countries like Myanmar and Vietnam our totem."
Lin says the issue received a lot of attention on China's microblog – a lot of it critical. One example:
"China has been on the track of liberalizing the press for a long time? But in the wrong direction," said one Weibo user.
(Photo: A Burmese man reads a local journal in Yangon on August 20, 2012. Burma said it had abolished media censorship on August 20 in the latest in a series of rapid democratic reforms, delighting journalists who lived for decades under the shadow of the censors' marker pen. By Soe Than Win/AFP/Getty Images)
The Dish 