Misunderstanding Chinese Censorship
Julian at Cha Shao Bao recently posted about an article on IT-Networks concerning the GFW.
A US businessman negotiating in Beijing with a large state-owned Chinese company was startled to discover that the morning after he sent an email back to head office about a certain issue, his counterpart opened their discussion with that same topic. This happened day after day, and he was convinced that his emails were being intercepted and passed on.
It shows that while China is building a relentless case that it is the rising global superpower of the 21st century, progress is being deliberately constrained within that most 21st century of institutions, the internet.
This shows nothing of the sort. What this shows is that some American businessmen are not adequately educated about the internet and that their Chinese counterparts are smart enough to exploit this weakness. Would a businessman send sensitive information back to headquarters in the mail on the back of a post card? Of course not. Well, sending unencrypted email is analogous to sending a postcard.
And just what does this have to do with the GFW?
If anything, what this really shows is that some companies in China are better prepared for the internet-powered 21st century than their American counterparts.
What this also shows is the completely ridiculous way in which people* sometimes view China. Now, I don’t expect an IT-focused site to know much about China, but I do expect an IT-focused site to know about IT.
Another part of the article states:
Wikipedia has a Chinese version, allwiki (Wikipedia also has a Chinese version: zh.wikipedia.org – how is it that an IT-focused site does not know that Wikipedia itself has a Chinese version?), and the English-language original is unobtainable in China because of its uncompromising entries on issues such as the June 1989 massacre in Beijing (the Chinese-language original is also unobtainable in China). As a result, it is impossible to access Wikipedia at all. The entry on kangaroos always draws the same response: “The page you are looking for is currently unavailable.”
That’s quite an assertion. It is not clear at all that Wikipedia has been entirely blocked for that reason. China gains nothing from the negative press it attracts due to blocking Wikipedia, and if it was only because of 6/4 and similar issues they could simply block those articles and other Wikipedia articles that reference those articles and not have to deal with so much negative press. I don’t think the Chinese government is afraid of kangaroos. No, there are probably a number of other reasons in addition to this one as to why Wikipedia is entirely blocked. Personally, I think it has a lot to do with a fear of citizens experiencing free speech on the part of the Communist Party.
Again, the fact that IT-Networks states that Wikipedia is blocked in its entirety just because of sensitive material in some articles when in fact no one knows for sure what the real reason(s) is/are goes to show how little some people* know when writing about China. Of course, this isn’t a new story.
To be fair, the rest of the article is informative and a good introduction to some of the issues internet users in China face.
Tags Media, GFW, Internet, Censorship, Internet Censorship, China
Explore posts in the same categories: China
March 13, 2007 at 3:33 pm
That is pretty pathetic.
March 13, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Actually, looking more closely at that site it looks more like some guy’s blog dressed up in an IT news site’s clothes. Hm, perhaps the term “foreign press” is a bit overboard here. Oops.
At least that blogger will probably get a kick out of being called “foreign press.” 
March 13, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Changed “foreign press” to “people.” Man, I’ve gotta learn to check things more thoroughly before posting here. This isn’t the first time I’ve put something up only to find later that I had completely misread or been duped by an article.
March 13, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I know how you feel:
http://www.daveswagon.com/2007/01/13/is-this-real/
March 13, 2007 at 4:54 pm
This whole affair brings to mind something Joseph Bosco of the Longbow Papers said at a dinner I attended a few weeks ago. I paraphrase:
“Thank god for editors. If it wasn’t for editors standing between what I write and what gets published who knows what crap would have been published.”
March 13, 2007 at 8:14 pm
I could access wikipedia two years ago from Weifang so probably not to do with the 1989 massacre then!
However, China is very defensive over foreign opinions on China’s recent history and there is no doubt in my mind that some websites are occasionally blocked due to this. (Remember Kev – some Chinese are still not aware of these events having happened).
On another front – news today in the Guardian about China accounting for 75% of the world’s executions (and that is only the official stats). Unofficially it’s estimated that 10,000 are executed each year. In this light is it surprising that the government blocks a few internet sites?
Also in the news over here is the banning of opening new internet cafes in China after July – the government claims online addiction is the cause of the ban (certainly seems to be a problem in China) but it is obviously also seen by freedom of speech groups as an attempt to restrain the spread of politically sensitive material.
March 13, 2007 at 9:00 pm
It’s more than a few internet sites, but no, it’s not surprising. To reiterate, personally, I think the ban on new internet cafes is to restrain the spread of freedom of speech itself, even more so than it is to restrain the spread of politically sensitive material, though that surely is an important objective as well.