China: We don’t censor the Internet. Really
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 31, 2006, 4:56 AM PST
TalkBack E-mail Print del.icio.us Digg this ATHENS, Greece–While many countries block off some Web sites, China has long drawn heightened scrutiny because of the breadth and sophistication of its Internet censorship.
Which is why it came as a surprise on Tuesday when a Chinese government official claimed at a United Nations summit here that no Net censorship existed at all.
The only problem: Few cases of Net censorship are as carefully and publicly documented as the Great Firewall of China. A study by researchers at Harvard Law School found 19,032 Web sites that were inaccessible inside China.
A report from a consortium of British, American and Canadian universities concluded: "China’s Internet-filtering regime is the most sophisticated effort of its kind in the world. Compared to similar efforts in other states, China’s filtering regime is pervasive, sophisticated and effective."
In fact, Google has cited China’s intermittent blocking of Google.com as the primary factor in the company’s creation of the Google.cn censored search site.
Read on for excerpts from Tuesday’s discussion in Athens.
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Chinese government official: We have talked a lot about China, and that’s rather strange, because if we participate in forums like this, I think that we should spend more time reflecting on the issues that have been raised.
There are millions of Chinese that have no access to the Internet. We are here because we would like to promote openness. But we have not really raised the issue of how we could participate more fully and how we could have better access to the Internet.
We need to also protect tourists in our country. And I have to say that I am a Chinese citizen, and I feel that I need to be protected. For example, we are threatened by terrorism. We do need protection. So we should be sure that everyone can come to China, enjoy our beautiful country, and I heard with great interest what our Pakistani colleague said.
I don’t think we should be using different standards to judge China. In China, we don’t have software blocking Internet sites. Sometimes we have trouble accessing them. But that’s a different problem. I know that some colleagues listen to the BBC in their offices from the Webcast. And I’ve heard people say that the BBC is not available in China or that it’s blocked. I’m sure I don’t know why people say this kind of thing. We do not have restrictions at all.
Nick Gowing, BBC anchor and session moderator: Would you like to elaborate on that?
Chinese official: How can I elaborate on it if we don’t have any restrictions?
Some people say that there are journalists in China that have been arrested. We have hundreds of journalists in China, and some of them have legal problems. It has nothing to do with freedom of expression.
Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC World Service: I’m glad he listens in Geneva. But if he was in central China, he would not be able to listen on short-wave radio and not be able to read our Web site. This is very well established. (It’s) effectively blocked…and has been for years.
概要：
本届联合国互联网管理论坛上。。。。
中国官员：我们老在对中国说三道四，这真的太奇怪了。因为，如果我们参加了这样的论坛，我认为我们就必须把更多的时间投入到那些已经提出的问题上。
数百万中国人还没有接入互联网的条件。我们现在站在这里正是因为我们希望促进开放。但是我们还没有真正提出，怎样才能更好地投身于这个进程，怎样提供更好的互联网接入。
我们必须保护在我国境内的游客。而且我必须说的是，我是一个中国公民，我觉得我需要保护。比如说，我们正在遭受来自恐怖主义的威胁。我们确实需要保护。所以我们必须确认所有来到中国的人都喜欢这个美丽的国家，而且我刚才满怀兴趣地聆听了巴基斯坦代表的发言。
我认为我们不该采用双重标准审视中国。在中国，我们没用软件封锁网站。偶尔我们会在访问的时候有些困难。但是那是另一个问题。我知道有些代表在办公室里通过网络收听BBC。而且我也听人说，在中国BBC无法访问或者它被封了。我可以肯定地说，我不知道为什么有人会这样讲。我们根本没有限制什么。
Nick Gowing, BBC：您可以详细说说吗？
中国官员：如果我们根本没有限制什么的话，我怎么跟你详细说说？
如果你不相信这是篇笑话，那么请你在浏览器上敲入 http://www.google.com 。。注意是.com不是.cn。。。然后输入三个字：天安门。看看我们的浏览器返回结果是什么？？？找个外国人让他帮你再搜一次试试。（因为“金盾”，在中国使用代理服务器也看不到结果的。）