Didn't See That Coming

A friend sent me this news article, which has me blogging during a break in class:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11529920

Chinese veteran politicians call for reform

"A group of 23 Communist Party elders in China has written a letter calling for an end to the country's restrictions on freedom of speech."

Crazy, right? And right on the heels of very blatant critique of Chinese oppression through the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo. The goverment's got to be having a great time right now. And by great time, I mean they are probably feeling very off-kilter, being attacked by multiple fronts in such a short period of time, and right before their big "Let's plan the future of our country" meeting.

The elders were actually pretty direct about what they wanted, in the form of 8 demands, to be specific (along with my thoughts):

1. Dismantle system where media organizations are all tied to higher authorities (so basically end all censorship?)
2. Respect journalists, accept their social status (which is... what exactly?)
3. Revoke ban on cross-province supervision by public opinion (I actually have no idea what they're talking about; must research)
4. Abolish cyber-police; control Web administrators' ability to delete/post items at will
5. Confirm citizens' right to know crimes and mistakes committed by ruling party (by "ruling party," they mean ONLY party)
6. Launch pilot projects to support citizen-owned media organizations (blogs are already beating them to the punch, so #4 could take care of this)
7. Allow media and publications from Hong Kong and Macau to be openly distributed (funny how so much of this is focused on media... *reflection on government-media relationship*)
8. Change the mission of propaganda authorities; from preventing the leak of information to facilitating its accurate and timely spread (so basically pull a complete 180 and do the exact opposite of what they've been doing for 61 years)

As you can see, these demands are pretty drastic departures from what has been conventional Chinese Communist Party practice. I have no idea what's going to happen, but I'm pretty darn excited to see.