As amazing as it seems, the Chinese government is starting to feel defensive about its censorship policies. The New York Times’ Joseph Kahn has this piece today about how a dozen Communist Party officials and scholars, including a former secretary to Mao, have protested the shutting-down of a news journal.
The Communist Party’s “Propaganda Department” shut down on January 24 a popular journal called “Freezing Point,” calling the move “malignant management” and an “abuse of power.”
The Wall Street Journal has this piece penned by Jason Dean about a press conference held by the Chinese government yesterday in Beijing during which officials attempted to portray their censorship policies as comparable to government policies in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Being a good journalist Dean didn’t get snarky in his write-up of the press conference, although I’m sure he had to restrain every impulse to avoid characterizing the Chinese officials as BS artists. But Dean nevertheless did manage to charactertize the government’s spin as incredulous.
Mr. Liu acknowledged that Beijing blocks access to some foreign Web sites and requires Internet companies operating in China to delete some content. He said that only a “small number” of foreign sites are blocked and that most of those are prohibited because they contain “p*rnography or terrorist information.” Mr. Liu didn’t specifically address why other sites are off limits, including the encyclopedia Wikipedia and sites run by the government of rival Taiwan, except to say that sites are blocked if their information violates China’s laws.
Meanwhile, the State Department is taking a proactive role on this issue. The Boston Globe today has this article by Hiawatha Bray about a new task force formed by the State Department on the foreign policy implications of the Internet. A U.S. diplomat, Barry Lowenkron, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor, plans to meet with Chinese officials to protest their government’s tough Internet censorship policies.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:04 AM|Comments(0)
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