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| Technology News - updated 10:59 AM ET Aug 9 |
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| Reuters | CNET | Internet Report | ZDNet | MacCentral | AP | ||
China Gears for Battle with 'Enemy Forces' on Web
By Paul Eckert BEIJING (Reuters) - China issued a clarion call on Wednesday to Communist Party media to build up their Web sites for a propaganda fight against what it said were enemy forces at home and abroad. In one of China's clearest statements yet revealing its ambivalence about the Internet, the Communist flagship People's Daily said the global computer network had made ``political thought work'' more efficient but also brought unwelcome ideas. ``Enemy forces at home and abroad are sparing no effort to use this battle front to infiltrate us,'' it said. While the Internet carried ``advanced, healthy and beneficial information, there is also much reactionary, superstitious and pornographic content'', it said. Beijing has until now focused on controlling the influx of ideas through the Internet. The government would now use the Web to ``create a good international image of China'', it said. Many Chinese media have Web sites, including the People's Daily (http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/). But with drab, party-approved content, they face the same uphill fight as Communist newspapers competing with livelier, more balanced fare from elsewhere. ``We must strive to promptly build an corps of experts which have high political consciousness, good news sense, Internet technology savvy and command of foreign languages,'' it said. China Labelled Enemy Of Net Beijing is struggling with the Internet's political implications as jail or exile no longer silences dissidents for good and the work of authors banned from writing for state media and publishing houses keeps popping up on the Web. China's leaders were walking a ``tightrope'' between promoting the Internet to modernize and stimulate its economy, and trying to control the content it carries, said a Western diplomat. ``I don't see how you can do both and if the Chinese can do it, they may be the first ones ever,'' he said. China's drive to be as well-wired as its perceived foes comes amid an ideological campaign aimed at justifying Communist rule amid deepening capitalist economic reforms. The clampdown has seen leading liberal critics stripped of jobs and banned from writing. On Tuesday, foreign human rights groups criticized Beijing for shutting down what they said was the country's only openly pro-democracy Web site based in China. The Shandong-based http://www.xinwenming.net/ (New Culture Forum) drew Beijing's ire for posting robust debate on democratization, said Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF). RSF named China last year as one of 20 enemies of the Internet for its censorship of the Web. Firewalls, Jail Cells China routinely blocks Web sites of Western media outlets, human rights groups, Tibetan exiles and other independent sources of information it deems politically sensitive or harmful. Domestic sites which violate party dictates have also been closed, but much control is exercised through self-censorship by those who run chat-rooms and bulletin boards. Stung by the spread of reports from unfettered Hong Kong media about domestic politics and corruption scandals, Beijing forbids increasingly popular domestic portals from posting news reports from sources other than state-controlled media. At least two Chinese ``Web dissidents'' are in jail. In China's top case, Huang Qi, a man from Sichuan who published information on the Internet about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, faces trial for subversion. Another man, Qi Yanchen, of Hebei province, faced the same charges for posting criticism of the government, RSF said. Members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group have also been arrested for using the Internet to spread information about their faith and about government efforts to crush the movement and to organize protests against the year-old crackdown.
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