Internet censorship in China: The conventional view

The long view of security strategies for your network.

No one doubts that the government of the People's Republic of China is one of the most repressive regimes on the planet, nor that its repression extends to pervasive interference with its citizens' access to information at all levels, including blocks on Internet-mediated transmission from outside the country and suppression of internal news circulation by indigenous reporters.

Australian journalist Jodie Martin wrote, "Since the introduction of the internet in China in 1994, the Chinese government has tried to contain and control online information available to its citizens. China's censorship of the internet has forced websites to be blocked, blogs shut down, and keywords censored in search engines resulting in no search results for certain topics."

Amnesty International has worked for years to oppose Chinese Internet censorship, harshly criticizing companies such as Yahoo, Cisco and Sun for collaborating with the Chinese regime in building technical barriers to communication in China (quoting directly):

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No one doubts that the government of the People's Republic of China is one of the most repressive regimes on the planet, nor that its repression extends to pervasive interference with its citizens' access to information at all levels, including blocks on Internet-mediated transmission from outside the country and suppression of internal news circulation by indigenous reporters.

Australian journalist Jodie Martin wrote, "Since the introduction of the internet in China in 1994, the Chinese government has tried to contain and control online information available to its citizens. China's censorship of the internet has forced websites to be blocked, blogs shut down, and keywords censored in search engines resulting in no search results for certain topics."

Amnesty International has worked for years to oppose Chinese Internet censorship, harshly criticizing companies such as Yahoo, Cisco and Sun for collaborating with the Chinese regime in building technical barriers to communication in China (quoting directly):

• In China, individuals can be sentenced to death for publishing information on the Internet considered a "state secret" – the definition of "state secret" can change daily, and can include important public health information (such as SARS or HIV/AIDS) or simply controversial opinions. Scores of people have been imprisoned for using the Internet, and, of those arrested, some have died as a result of torture by the police.
• Some companies, including Cisco and Sun, have helped to build the infrastructure that makes Internet censorship possible while others, including Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google, are increasingly complying with government demands to actively restrict Chinese users.
• In China the Internet is heavily policed. To operate in China, U.S. companies say they must monitor and restrict search results and blogs, and are actively restricting topics such as human rights, political reform, Tiananmen Square and Falun Gong, among others. Yahoo, Microsoft and Google all help to implement China's draconian system of censorship.
• Yahoo has sacrificed the privacy of users to facilitate their subsequent imprisonment for peacefully expressing opinions over the Internet. Shi Tao, a Chinese poet and journalist, is serving a 10-year prison sentence in China simply for sending an e-mail to the USA. In a disturbingly similar case, Li Zhi, another Yahoo e-mail customer, was jailed for eight years in 2003, after posting comments that criticized government corruption. Amnesty considers them both Prisoners of Conscience.
• These companies claim that accepting China's restrictions is unavoidable. Yet these forms of censorship contradict the very principles that these companies were founded upon, and also go against the constitution of the People's Republic of China and violate Articles 17 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantee privacy and freedom of expression. (Amnesty International 2007)

In recent months, I'm sure that many readers have been following with interest the conflict between Google and the Chinese authorities; at the time of this writing (mid-March 2010) it looked quite possible that Google would withdraw from the Chinese market in response to perceived government-sponsored or government-tolerated hack attacks on the search-engine company in January .

M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP-ISSMP, specializes in security and operations management consulting services and teaching. He is Chief Technical Officer of Adaptive Cyber Security Instruments, Inc. and Associate Professor of Information Assurance in the School of Business and Management at Norwich University. Visit his Web site for white papers and course materials.