China vowed on Tuesday to keep a tight grip on the Internet, saying in a white paper it would continue to block anything considered subversive or threatening to “national unity.” The policy statement was released three months after a public dispute over censorship prompted Google Inc. to shut its mainland-based search engine. The report said there were 384 million Internet users in China at the end of 2009, equal to about 29 per cent of the total population. The government aims to boost that to 45 per cent in the next five years by pushing into rural areas where the white paper said there was a “digital gap.”
It said the Internet had taken an “irreplaceable role in accelerating the development of the national economy” and would continue to impact daily work, education and lifestyles. But China, which routinely blocks websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, gave no sign there would be an easing of the “Great Firewall” — the nickname for the network of filters that keep mainland Web surfers from accessing material the government deems sensitive.
The official English translation of the paper gives a favourable mention of Twitter — an apparent glitch since the US microblogging service has been banned in China since last year. The English version of the white paper gave it as an example of a fast-growing service that allows people to express themselves. The Chinese version mentions only micro-blogs. The 31-page white paper did not give specific examples of what content would be banned, saying Chinese laws prohibit the spread of “contents subverting state power, undermining national unity, infringing upon national honour and interests, inciting ethnic hatred and secession” as well as such things as pornography and terror.
—AP