Last  night at about 8pm a fire broke out in the northern building of the new CCTV complex in Beijing (see photos on CNReviews or videos and updates on Danwei).  Huge fire.  Most fires burn from the bottom up, but this building was so flammable it actually burned from the top down.  It’s just another casualty from the Olympic building boom that has the iconic Bird’s Nest being turned into a shopping center.

Blame for the fire has been accepted by CCTV, the nation’s central television network, who admitted to ok’ing a fireworks display from the buildings upper floors.  Not the smartest move the network has ever made.  My wife and I watched as the news broke online and were utterly disappointed to find that there was no “breaking news” being shown on any TV station within China.  The fact that this story was stifled by the government officials has actually become more of a story than the fire itself (at least in the China blogosphere).

Censorship is nothing new, especially here in Xinjiang.  China just defended itself in front of the United Nations for its human rights record, but you’d never know it living here in Xinjiang and reading the daily news.

I’m really not quite sure what I think about all of it.  Censorship happens everywhere, in every country to some degree or another, but at what point does it become unacceptable? At what point does covering up an unimportant building fire become a more serious event?