p2p news / p2pnet: Online censorship in China doesn’t much differ from that used in the west, the New York Times has a senior Chinese official responsible for managing the Internet, saying.

In fact, "China is basically in compliance with the international norm," Liu Zhengrong, who supervises Internet affairs for the information office of the Chinese State Council, states, according to the story.

By way of example, he cited powers the Bush administrations had gained under the Patriot Act to monitor Web sites and e-mail communications, “and the deployment of technology called Carnival by the FBI, which allows it to scrutinize huge volumes of e-mail traffic”.

It was clear, “any country’s legal authorities closely monitor the spread of illegal information,” he said. "We have noted that the U.S. is doing a good job on this front."

Objecting to "biased criticisms" of Chinese Internet controls that, "ignored similar restrictions imposed by foreign governments and private companies on their own Web sites," Liu also drew attention to Web sites run by the New York Times and Washington Post that, "reserve the right to delete or block content in reader discussion groups that editors determine to be illegal, harmful or in bad taste,’ says the NYT.

"Major U.S. companies do this and it is regarded as normal," Liu said. "So why should China not be entitled to do so?"

Admitting China operates a, "technologically sophisticated firewall to protect the ruling Communist Party against what it treats as Web-based challenges from people inside China and abroad," Liu also claimed Chinese Net uses, "have free rein to discuss many politically sensitive topics and rejected charges that the police have arrested or prosecuted people for using the Internet to circulate views," says the NYT.

"Mr. Liu said there are now 111 million Chinese Web users and that in the past five years, China has expanded the bandwidth available to connect with overseas Web sites nearly 50-fold to 136,000 megabits per second, underscoring its strong commitment to allow its citizens to gather information and interact with people around the world," says the story.

And in a comment echoing another made by a Google spokeswoman, "The number of Web sites that mainland Chinese users cannot access amounts to a ‘tiny percentage’ of those available abroad," he said.

When it was revealed Google was censoring news from within mainland China by excluding sites, ""We … considered the amount of information that would be omitted," said the company’s Debbie Frost. "In this case it is less than two percent of Chinese news sources. On balance we believe that having a service with links that work and omits a fractional number is better than having a service that is not available at all."

Also See:
New York Times – In Rare Briefing, China Defends Internet Controls, February 14, 2006
omits a fractional number – Google: China search censor, January 25, 2006

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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate. It’s a free DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.

Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.

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