I considered writing about the Great Firewall. I considered writing about how sites like Wikipedia, Blogger, YouTube, Feedburner--how all of 'em were subject to being blocked or censored by China at some point over the past year.

But then I thought about how many Chinese voices have successfully circumvented the Wall in 2007. And I realized that's a much bigger story. I thought about how video-sharing sites are now well-known among most of my Chinese friends, whereas at this time last year most of them had no idea these sites existed. Sure, most people use them for watching the latest episode of Heroes or Prison Break, but as we also saw in the past 12 months, they're being used for so much more as well.

2007 saw high-profile incidents like the PX Chemical Factory protest and the Shenyang Ant Farmers come to light via video-sharing. We also saw individuals reporting animal abuse, as well as homemade consumer reports on poor-quality products.

Yesterday over breakfast, my friend Tom reminded me of Peter Gabriel's project Witness, which is an organization that tries to arm citizen journalists in troubled parts of the world with video cameras. "Whenever there was a camera around," Gabriel said, "it was a great deal harder for those in power to bury the story."

Well, I like Prison Break as much as the next guy, but Chinese video-sharing sites are obviously far more useful than that. Now that mobile technology has become cheaper combined with the fact that most Chinese now have more spending power--well, we now essentially have a nationwide video surveillance system ready to upload any injustice over the Great Wall to the outside world.

Not only are videos being uploaded, once they are viewed they invariably spark very lively discussions and debate. Very often political discussions.

Now, I don't know how many of you guys have been to China, but my Chinese friends don't talk politics too often. I was beginning to think Chinese youths were even more politically apathetic than I was growing up! But seeing such discussions going on is very encouraging.

Take this video of Japanese PM Yasuo Fukuda's speech at Beijing University. The video is a whopping 58 minutes long (take that, YouTube!). And since being uploaded three days ago it's been viewed almost 300,000 times, and has received almost 3,000 comments.

What the future holds for these video-sharing sites in 2008, no one knows for sure. There are indications that video-sharing sites may become the focus of the Government's attention. We did see a huge surge in censorship activity during the CPC National Congress earlier this year, and that may be a preview of what's to come during the Olympics.

Whatever the case, no matter what censorship is thrown at them this upcoming year, and no matter what happens during the Olympics, Chinese people are now better equipped than ever to have their voices heard.

And on this the last day of 2007, that's definitely something worth toasting.

UPDATE: Wow! It didn't take long for someone to drop a shocker of a video! Check this TIME article about this amazing video. 2008 is off to a furious start!

 

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