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Hundreds turned out for China’s very first “Gay Pride Festival,” and the event has been touted as a sign of greater openness in China.

While it is certainly nice that the event was pulled off, I have my doubts about how much it means for freedom in China. First, the event was largely organized by the expatriate community, and foreigns were present in disproportionate numbers. And then there was some business about government officials making an effort to prevent it all from happening:

Organizers of China’s first gay pride week were struggling Thursday to find new venues for their events after police in Shanghai warned clubs and bars against joining the planned festival… Police and commercial bureau officials warned a local restaurant of “very severe” consequences if it screened films as part of the festival, says an organizer who asked not to be identified.

China has long been a place where gays and lesbians could feel comfortable, though this is not to say that they have enjoyed a true sense of community. In China, there is less stigma attached with alternative lifestyles, in part because Chinese subscribe to a philosophy of live and let live, and so there has never been as much of a reason to take the fight for awareness out into the streets. Government officials may have preferred that the festivities not be held, but this is not to say that average Chinese care one way or the other about celebrations of this kind.

Gay Pride festivities did not garner much media attention as the news that China is now seeking to limit Internet freedoms through a newly required software installation called Greed Dam Youth Escort. This software would be required on all computers produced in China, and it would facilitate censorship for Chinese citizens. The New York Times responded in an editorial, as though it were a critical, domestic issue:

China has accomplished remarkable things in the past 20 years, including building one of the world’s largest economies. Computers helped speed that development — and will be even more important in the future. So Beijing’s decision to require that all new personal computers sold in China contain software that bars access to certain Internet content seems particularly self-destructive and foolish.

Western newspapers have been going nuts over the Internet story, and I believe that it is in part an expression of frustrations — because they have been proven wrong about China. Journalists have been promising us that things are getting better in China, and yet here we have a sign that things are actually getting worse!

How bad is China, though, compared with other economies? The price that one pays for expressions of heterodox behaviors can actually be much higher outside of China. Here, I am thinking of controls placed on social norms in the Middle East. In the area of self expression, specifically, consider that from a hotel room in Beijing, a foreigner can suggest on some blog that the Chinese Communist Party can “suck it,” and nothing untoward is likely to happen to that person. Instead, try criticizing the King of Thailand while holed up in Bangkok and see how that works out. Or ask Salman Rushdie how he feels about this particular subject. I have written a book that was critical of happenings China, and yet no fatwa has been issued.

Update: Washington Post has also run an editorial on the issue of the new computer controls, and the link is here.

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