The Washington Times Reports on China's Efforts to Control the Internet (excerpt)

By Richard Halloran

August 24, 2002

HONOLULU: The Washington Times reported on August 24, 2002, that Chinese authorities are still trying to suppress the Falun Gong movement and other dissident groups that use the Internet to organize, but a new report says time may be on the side of the dissidents. "China faces a very modern paradox," says a report by the Rand Corporation, a California think tank.

Chinese leaders see the development of information technology "as an indispensable element in their quest for recognition as a great power."

At the same time, "China is still an authoritarian, single-party state with a regime whose continued rule relies on the suppression of anti-regime activities," the report says. The Rand report, written by James Mulvenon, a specialist on China, and Michael Chase, a researcher on information technology, is titled "You've Got Dissent." The Internet has expanded swiftly in China, mostly among young, educated people in big cities along the eastern seaboard. In 1999, there were 2.1 million Internet users in China; at the beginning of this year, that had soared to 31.7 million. The number of computers connected to the Internet jumped from 747,000 in 1999 to 12.5 million this year, the report says. With the Internet comes e-mail, which has been vital for the Falun Gong. [...] Some practitioners set up a secret press conference in Beijing to condemn police beatings and to disseminate articles. [...]

To counter the dissidents, Chinese authorities have turned to low-tech and high-tech solutions. The low-tech steps include shutting down electronic networks, using informers and surveilling dissident suspects and arresting them. In March 2001, for instance, security officers arrested Yang Zili, a software engineer, for maintaining a Web site he called a "Garden of Ideas." His computer, books and other items were confiscated. High-tech solutions include blocking Web sites and e-mail, hacking into dissident systems and monitoring the e-mail of foreign visitors and suspected dissidents. In addition, the authorities spread disinformation on the Internet. Fake articles attributed to the Falun Gong's Mr. Li, for instance, have been sent to Internet users in China. Spamming or saturating Falun Gong e-mail addresses is a regular occurrence. [...]

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20020824-75546714.htm

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