&c1=usa&c2=(none)&c3=The+Observer&c4=China+and+the+media,Digital+media,Business,Media,Observer&c5=&c6=John+Naughton&c7=2002_12_09){kind=small}
- The Observer,
- Sunday December 8 2002
One of the funnier documents circulating on the Net in recent weeks is a cod transcript of a conversation between Dubya and Condoleeza Rice, his National Security Adviser, about the change of leadership in China. The nub of the joke is that Rice keeps trying to tell her boss that 'Hu is the President of China', and Dubya keeps on saying 'Who is the President of China? That's what I wanna know.' (In the end, Bush tells Rice to get him the head of the UN who will surely know who is the leader of China. 'You want Kofi?' she asks. 'No' says the President, 'but I could sure do with a glass of milk'.)
Whether this little joke is available to the unfortunate inhabitants of China is a moot point. Probably not, if it appears on a Western media site - although it may be visible if published on a soft-porn site like 'Hustler'. How come? Well, the Chinese government goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure that some things are hidden from its people.
For several years, we have known that access to certain Western websites (including, at one time or another, those of the BBC, CNN, the Guardian, The Observer and the Irish Times) have been barred to internet users within China. There was even a jocular journalistic term for the phenomenon - 'the Great Firewall of China' - but in the early days its operation was erratic and its coverage arbitrary.
But the findings of a Harvard research project suggest that Hu and his boys deserve full marks for effort. The study, by Jonathan Zittrain and Ben Edelman of the Harvard Law School, is the first extensive examination of internet censorship in China and suggests it has the most restrictive policy in the world, with local users being denied access to 19,000 websites that the Government deems to be threatening.
Zittrain and Edelman tested access to 200,000 sites from multiple points in China over six months and found that Beijing blocked thousands of the most popular news, political and religious sites, along with selected entertainment and educational destinations. Treatment of 'adult' sites was more erratic, with some - Penthouse and Playboy, for example - blocked while others, such as Hustler, were freely available. There was also evidence that the authorities sometimes punished people who sought 'forbidden' information by temporarily making it difficult for them to gain any access to the internet.
The study undermines the optimistic belief that the internet was inherently too elusive for state control. In effect, China has denied its 46 million internet users access to information that could weaken its authoritarian power. Beijing does so even while permitting internet use for commercial, cultural, educational and entertainment purposes, which it sees as essential in a globalised world. Only the most determined and technologically sophisticated users can evade the filtering, and they do so at their peril. 'If the purpose of such filtering is to influence what the average Chinese internet user sees,' concluded Zittrain, 'success could be within grasp'.
The researchers conducted an earlier study of how Saudi Arabia controls Net access and found its filtering much less comprehensive - though tighter on pornography. Compared with Saudi Arabia, China exercises far broader control. All access to the major sites on Tibet and Taiwan is blocked, for example. Likewise Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and almost any site connected with a major Western religion. And, of course, any mention of the magic word 'democracy' is verboten . A Google search for 'democracy China' reveals that most of the top sites are out of reach. Like their predecessors who built the Great Wall, Hu & Co are still determined to keep out the barbarians.
