China has the largest number of internet users in the world – 340 million, or roughly the population of the United States, so the censorship in china’s internet is much more important than other countries. This essay addresses the question of what the censorship affects china’s internet in terms of politics and democracy. This essay will first provide a review of background research, including definitions. Next, it will provide an analysis of secondary research,focusing on the question of the
censorship in China’s internet. This paper will argue that should the Chinese government continue to build internet censorship, or bring more democracy into internet.
Internet censorship continues to be a significant issue for Chinese internet. For as long as there’s been an internet, china has sought to monitor and control how its citizens use it. That’s no small task in the world’s most populous country, which now has more web-surfers (James R, 2009). However, the internet censorship can be defined as the action of preventing material that a party considers objectionable from circulating within a system of communication over which that party has no power (Fallows J, 2008). Despite the Chinese internet censorship has been built for many years and people are gradually adapting it, Obama answered questions on internet censorship and Twitter in his (live streamed) talked to Chinese students, he said: ‘I have always been a strong supporter of open internet use. I am a big supporter of non-censorship. I recognise that different countries have different traditions’ (Townend J, 2009). This paper will now explore whether Chinese internet censorship will be much more democracy.
Foreign visitors in China frequently complain to me that they could not access certain websites during their stay in China (Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center). Indeed, certain news websites, websites related to certain religious organizations (most of them are illegal in China), as well as some pornographic websites are inaccessible from China. Internet censorship in china is among the most stringent in the world. Internet users in china sometimes browse Baidu’s Tieba and leaves comments to others’ article, but I have seen one that one person’s comment was cancelled by the supervisor of Tieba, because he talked about the things that relates to one politician. That’s strange in my own opinion, because we have the human right to talk about things that happen in the whole world everyday, if we have no right to talk about government event, how the government can get what the citizens are thinking about.
There is a software called Green Dam-Youth Escort, can filter out pornography and other ‘unhealthy information’ from the internet. It would allow the government to update computers with an ever-changing list of banned web sites (Internet Censorship in China, 2009). But this is a bad thing, assume it is just like downloading spyware onto your computer, but the government is the spy, said Charles Mok, Chairman of the Hong Kong chapter of the Internet Society, an international advisory group on Internet standards (Internet Censorship in China, 2009).
China defended its control of information on the internet that it deems sensitive or harmful, one day after the American President Barack Obama told students in Shanghai that information should be free (Fletcher O, 2009). Indeed, As China's burgeoning economy grows and with its admission in December 2001 to the World Trade Organization (WTO), foreign ownership, investment and involvement of foreign companies in China's information and telecommunications industries has soared. This growth is not without complications (Censorship in China).
As we know, the Beijing Olympic Games has successfully held in china, With the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games a mere 10 days away, members of the media have learned that there is at least one thing they can expect not to be open: the Internet (Musil S, 2008). During the Olympic Games, many foreign journalists complained about that they can not access to a multitude of sites such as Amnesty International or any site with Tibet in the address (Graham N, 2008). This is understandable, because China has 56 nationalities which is very hard to control all of them, so if one nationality wants to be apart from China and because the strength of the internet, china has to censor its internet to protect the whole country. One of a foreign internet users said that some hotels and other buildings in China cater to western visitors, the controls may be somewhat relaxed, but once he want to access his blog, he can not reach it (Marsan DC, 2008).Should we rethink of the politics, and bring more democracy to China so that people can talk whatever they want to say, and the most important things is that citizens can give their creative thoughts for the government to build the country more beautiful and full of power whatever issues occur. Although I think democracy is important of human beings, the internet security is more important because the internet can bring everything that we can not imagine what will happen to people.
In conclusion, the research shows that the internet censorship in China is very strong and it is a very important issue. However, other findings, as they relate to the Chinese internet censorship are less positive but for the situation of China, that is understandable, because it is a large community that no other countries can compared with. Although the studies show that many foreigners complain about the internet censorship in China, china gives a more ‘clean’ internet space for its citizens.
Reference List
Censorship in China. (n.d.). Amnesty International USA, vol. 21 no. 3, pp. 29-34.
Fallows, J 2008, The Connection Has Been Reset, viewed 1 Dec 2009, http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/chinese-firewall.
Fletcher, O 2009, ‘Censorship After Obama Lauds Openness’, China Daily, vol. 321 no. 17, pp. 34-37.
Graham, N 2008, Olympic Committee Admits Internet Censorship Deal With China, vol. 49 no. 2, pp87-90.
Internet Censorship in China, 2009, viewed 3 Dec 2009, http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/news/international/countriesandterritories/china/internet_censorship/index.html.
James, R 2009, A Brief History Of: Chinese Internet Censorship, viewed 1 Dec 2009, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1885961,00.html.
Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center, (n.d.). Internet Censorship in China, viewed 1 Dec 2009, http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Internet-censorship.html.
Marsan, DC 2008, Chinese Internet Censorship: An inside look, China Daily, vol. 67 no. 7, pp. 99-102.
Musil, S 2008, Internet Censorship Plagues Journalists at Olympics, vol. 58 no, 9, pp. 154-159.
Townend, J 2009, Barack Obama On Twitter and Chinese Internet Censorship, viewed 3 Dec 2009, http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/11/16/barack-obama-on-twitter-and-chinese-internet-censorship/.
