China's New Online Encyclopedia Aims To Surpass Wikipedia, And To 'Guide And Lead' The Public

from the great-wall-of-culture dept

China has a long history of producing encyclopedias that goes back thousands of years. One of the most famous works is the fifteenth-century Yongle encyclopedia, which had over 15,000 volumes, and is still the largest paper-based general encyclopedia ever created. More recently, the main publication in this field was the Encyclopedia of China, whose first edition had 74 volumes. Later, CD-ROM and online versions were added. The third edition has just been announced, and although it is not quite on the scale of the Yongle encyclopedia, it is ambitious in its scope:

The third edition of the Chinese Encyclopaedia is currently China's largest publication project, with more than 20,000 authors from universities and research institutes contributing to articles in more than 100 disciplines.

Designed to be the nation's first digital book of "everything", it will feature more than 300,000 entries, each about 1,000 words long, making it twice as large as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and about the same size as the Chinese-language version of Wikipedia.

As the article in the South China Morning Post notes, access to Wikipedia is patchy in China. Most of the uncontroversial articles can be read, but searches for sensitive keywords such as "Dalai Lama" and even "Xi Jinping," have a habit of timing out. The new project is clearly designed to steer people towards safer opinions:

"The Chinese Encyclopaedia is not a book, but a Great Wall of culture," Yang Muzhi, the editor-in-chief of the project and the chairman of the Book and Periodicals Distribution Association of China, told senior scientists at a meeting at the headquarters of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing on April 12, according to a report on the academy’s website the next day.

...

Yang told the meeting China was under international pressure and felt an urgent need to produce its own encyclopaedia to "guide and lead the public and society".

Speaking of Wikipedia, Yang went on:

"The readers regarded it to be authoritative, accurate, and it branded itself as a 'free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit', which is quite bewitching," he wrote. "But we have the biggest, most high-quality author team in the world ... our goal is not to catch up, but overtake."

China certainly has the resources to complete this huge project by 2018, its planned launch date. And once those 300,000 entries are available to "guide and lead the public," it's hard not to think that accessing the rival Wikipedia will be made so hard that most people will give up trying, and stick with the new Chinese Encyclopedia. At that point, the Chinese authorities will indeed have created a "Great Wall of culture" to complement that Great Firewall of China, both designed to keep out all those inconvenient ideas.

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Filed Under: china, encyclopedia, encyclopedia of china, knowledge


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Champion, 8 May 2017 @ 6:49pm

    ummmm

    no

    won't happen with anyone outside china

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Vel the Engimatic, 8 May 2017 @ 6:50pm

    Geez...

    -and people wonder why China is the new bogeyman of the modern age in terms of countries. They are literally trying to make a Chinese version of 1984 in their own country.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Bergman (profile), 8 May 2017 @ 6:51pm

    All you need to judge the accuracy of the new encyclopedia...

    Is to search it for the word "Taiwan."

    The PRC is a young nation founded by a pack of rebels, that considers Taiwan to be a rebellious province, not a separate nation.

    The thing is, the proper name for the nation of Taiwan is The Legitimate Chinese Government-in-exile. There are good reasons for the two to dislike the other, and that's the biggie.

    Taiwan is run by the descendants of the government bureaucrats that the PRC rebels failed to murder.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    OldMugwump (profile), 8 May 2017 @ 7:33pm

    I wonder if they'll copyright it

    If not, after machine translation it will be a great source for Wikipedia improvements (on non-political topics, which is almost all of them).

    Thanks, Chinese taxpayers!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 May 2017 @ 7:43pm

    A Great Wall of culture? More like a Great Wall on culture.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 May 2017 @ 8:35pm

    'Guide And Lead' The Public

    I wonder what this means.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. icon
    DB (profile), 8 May 2017 @ 8:43pm

    A question that is perhaps off topic. Or squarely on topic.

    How many projects on Github use the phrase "aims to", and are abandoned a few months later?

    My observation, dating back at least 15 years to when sourceforge pioneered site-based community building and collaboration, is that "aims to" is highly correlated to getting 20% completed and then SQUIRREL!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    icon
    grace halim (profile), 8 May 2017 @ 9:03pm

    VBANDAR Agen Remi9 Judi Sakong Bandar Poker Online Indonesia Terpercaya

    i wonder what what china can achieve after 10 years from now

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    Priyanka Roy, 8 May 2017 @ 10:46pm

    This blog is really nice and the article is very good and usefull

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 May 2017 @ 6:34am

    guide : carrot : : lead : stick

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 May 2017 @ 9:04am

    Unreliable sources: all Western news outlets.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 May 2017 @ 9:49am

    How do they block the articles?

    As the article in the South China Morning Post notes, access to Wikipedia is patchy in China. Most of the uncontroversial articles can be read, but searches for sensitive keywords such as "Dalai Lama" and even "Xi Jinping," have a habit of timing out.

    Everything on Wikipedia has been SSL-protected for several years now, so how do they know which articles people are reading? Some kind of traffic analysis?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 9 May 2017 @ 2:26pm

    Re:

    First, they attach the 'guide' (ring) to a convenient body part and then attach the 'lead' (chain) thus giving them a convenient method of directing one's attention to the duly approved culture.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Lawrence, 13 May 2017 @ 7:48pm

    China Encyclopedia and Wikipedia

    I think is very difficult to compete with wikipedia. Googlés Knol tried it and failed.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  15. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:19am

    Re: Geez...

    you are ridiculous....China is not invading all the middle east, has not made infinite coup de etats in latinamerican, and certainly have never used an atomic bomb on innocent people (hello USA).

    what are you talking about? you idiot.

    USA is the one and only boogeyman and that is why nobody likes them.
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-sin ce-world-war-ii/5492051

    link to this | view in thread ]

  16. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:21am

    Re: ummmm

    the same was said about China's economy, now everybody agrees it will surpass that of the USA before the end of 2017...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  17. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:22am

    Re: All you need to judge the accuracy of the new encyclopedia...

    Yes, search for who killed JKF in wikipedia. Or about the USA-Vietnam war, loooool. You are ignorant.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  18. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:24am

    Re: I wonder if they'll copyright it

    As if USA copyright works for anything. Nobody cares about USA intellectual properties, loooool, You are welcome.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  19. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:25am

    Re:

    Said Copyright....right?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  20. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:26am

    Complete bullshite. The real wall on culture is COPYRIGHT.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  21. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:27am

    Re: China Encyclopedia and Wikipedia

    Google < China

    It is even harder to compete with USA economy, yet Chinese economy will surpass that of USA soon. It is a fact.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  22. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:29am

    Re:

    It means guide and lead as in remember your american propaganda machine i mean media industry leading you into the war on Iraq (with fake evidence of non existent WMDs)????? Remember that? That kind of leading. Agree?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  23. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:30am

    Re:

    USA has been forever aiming to restore peace in the middle east and around the world. Is that what you mean?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  24. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:32am

    Re:

    yours truly,
    the American Government

    (remember all those fake evidence on the non existent WMDs in Iraq that lead to the USA invasion over Iraq? how is that for a carrot or a stick, whatever works for you?)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  25. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2017 @ 10:36am

    Re: How do they block the articles?

    They just don't post the good stuff.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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