"Effectively protecting Internet security is an important part of China's Internet administration, and an indispensable requirement for protecting state security and the public interest," the 34-page paper said. It made no promise about lifting of the current ban on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that are highly popular sites in the rest of the world. "While exercising such freedom and rights, citizens are not allowed to infringe upon state, social and collective interests or the legitimate freedom and rights and other citizens," it said.
It called for the establishment of a "multilateral and transparent allocation system" for the Internet. China supports the creation of an "authoritative and just international Internet administration" under the United Nations, it said.
China has the world's largest population of Internet users at 386 million accounting for 29% of the total users in the world. It has spent $630 billion on the development of the Internet since 1997. The country's share of world Internet using population will rise to 45% in the next five years, it said.
Government agencies at the central, provincial and municipal levels have played a key role in the growth of the Internet by putting up 45,000 portals by 2009 end, the paper issued by the State Council said. "The building of e-government has substantially improved the work efficiency and transparency of government information," the paper said while saying that 75 central and state organs, 32 provincial governments, 333 local governments at the level of prefectures and over 80 percent county-level governments had set up websites to provide online services to facilitate different activities.
Internet growth has brought in its own risks. "Online fraud, online theft and other forms of crimes which encroach on the property of others are increasing rapidly," it said. "Crimes such as producing and spreading computer viruses, and computer and network hacking are increasing." It also expressed worry about other criminal activities like disseminating obscenity, pornography and gambling. Computer crimes dealt by the public security departments rose from 35,000 in 2008 to 48,000 in 2009.
The English version of the white paper caused a bit of confusion when it praised Twitter while the Chinese version remained silent about it. "The newly emerging online services, including blog, Twitter, video-sharing and social networking websites, are developing rapidly in China, and provide greater convenience for Chinese citizens to communicate online," it said.
The paper contains an entire section on "guaranteeing citizen's freedom of speech on the Internet." But it adds all the usual caveats that leave ample room for the government's extensive censorship: Ironically, the English-language version of the paper cites Twitter, the social networking service blocked by Beijing, as a positive development for China's Internet and evidence of Internet freedom. "The newly emerging online services, including blog, Twitter, video-sharing and social networking websites, are developing rapidly in China, and provide greater convenience for Chinese citizens to communicate online."
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Saibal Dasgupta
Quelle/Source: The Times of India, 08.06.2010
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