China Cracks Down On Bloggers With New Internet Limits

by Eugenia Chien

(PNS) -- New Chinese government restrictions on the Internet have sent a chill throughout the online community in China. Some analysts say the regulations are another step in Beijing's attempt to control information on China's fast-spreading news sites and weblogs.

The new regulations, released by the Ministry of Information Industry and the State Council through China's state-run Xinhua News Agency on Sept. 24, impose restrictions on publishing information concerning politics, economy, military, and foreign affairs. The regulations apply to both news and "non-news" Web sites that "disseminate news or public announcements."

According to the regulations released by Xinhua News Agency, Web sites are banned from posting information that endangers "national security" and "national interest." It also prohibits any Web site that "disseminates inflammatory information, gatherings" or contains "libelous" and "violent, sexual, or corruptive" information. The Chinese government did not specify what information would fall into these categories.

Although mainstream news agencies in China have long worked under censorship, the new regulations will have a far-reaching impact, according to Allen Cheng, an American journalist living in Beijing since 2000. "The new laws are aimed at both bloggers and news site operators," Cheng told Pacific News Service. "People will be much more hesitant in posting politically sensitive comments on the Web now."

The new regulations are more significant to local Chinese journalists rather than foreign journalists, Cheng says. "Many local journalists who are free thinkers will have to be much more careful; many have set up blogs in recent years and will have to be careful in expressing themselves," he says.

Other observers agree that bloggers, not the mainstream press, are especially affected by the new restrictions.

"The mainstream press in China already follows official sanctions -- they self-censor and get their news filtered and censored before publication," says Liu Kang, director of the Program in Chinese Media and Communication Studies at Duke University. "Bloggers and unofficial bulletin board forums are the target of these new regulations," Liu says. "The Chinese government has been targeting bloggers for a long time."

Popular Internet portals that host newsgroups like sina.com and Netease face possible new censorship.

Liu says that the new restrictions are simply another step in China's efforts to control its growing Internet community, which currently has 134 million users. The Chinese government has launched campaigns to crack down on pornographic Web sites and Internet fraud in the past. Because the new regulations are not specific, their effect will be to intimidate Internet users, Liu says.

Foreign Web sites also have been censoring their own sites in accordance with Chinese law. Critics say that foreign Web sites are helping the Chinese government in carrying out censorship. In June, reports surfaced that Microsoft blocked parts of their China Web sites that contain words like "democracy" or "Taiwan independence." Yahoo and Google also restrict what users can search on their Web sites in China.

The most public controversy of foreign Web sites' cooperation with the Chinese government came this September, when Yahoo provided information that allegedly helped jail a journalist. Journalist Shi Tao, who worked for the Contemporary Business News in Hunan province, was sent to prison in April for 10 years for sending an internal Communist Party memo to a foreign-owned Web site. According to Reporters Without Borders, Yahoo gave information about journalist Shi Tao's personal e-mail account that helped the government prove its case.

Chinese-language media outside the mainland reported outrage at Yahoo's involvement in the case. Chinese legal expert and civil rights activist Wong Yi publicly called for a boycott of Yahoo services, according to a Sept. 25 report in the Taiwan-based Liberty Times.

"The basic principle of the Internet is the free flow of information, without which there could never be Yahoo today," Wong said. "Yahoo is betraying the very basis of its existence."

A Sept. 23 editorial in the Epoch Times, a newspaper associated with the Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned in China, said that Yahoo should learn a lesson from the new Internet restrictions.

"When more human rights and democracy activists emerge in China, these foreign companies will eventually also be victims of China's intimidation," said the editorial. "Foreign companies like Yahoo can't afford not to consider what it means to be a partner in China's Internet censorship. If this trend continues, China will become more oppressive."

Though the new regulations seek to censor information on the Web, Duke University's Liu Kang says that China's Internet does have real problems that need governmental response. The United States has copyright and libel laws that apply to the Internet. But in China, similar efforts are just getting off the ground, Liu says.

"The Internet is always a double-edged sword," Liu says. It can help democratize society and bring about free speech, but it also can bring about other problems. "The Chinese government is swamped with (fraud) lawsuits as a result of the Internet and the commercial press," Liu says. "The Internet should be regulated in China, but how to regulate is complicated."