Author: Beina Xu Updated: April 7, 2015
The Chinese government has long kept tight reins on both traditional and new media to avoid potential subversion of its authority. Its tactics often entail strict media controls using monitoring systems and firewalls, shuttering publications or websites, and jailing dissident journalists, bloggers, and activists. Google's battle with the Chinese government over Internet censorship, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee's awarding of the 2010 Peace Prize to jailed Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo, have also increased international attention to censorship issues. At the same time, the country's burgeoning economy relies on the web for growth, and experts say the growing need for Internet freedom is testing the regime's control.
China's constitution affords its citizens freedom of speech and press, but the opacity of Chinese media regulations allows authorities to crack down on news stories by claiming that they expose state secrets and endanger the country. The definition of state secrets in China remains vague, facilitating censorship of any information that authorities deem harmful (PDF) to their political or economic interests. CFR Senior Fellow Elizabeth C. Economy says the Chinese government is in a state of schizophrenia about media policy as it goes back and forth, testing the line, knowing they need press freedom and the information it provides, but worried about opening the door to the type of freedoms that could lead to the regime's downfall.
In May 2010, the government issued its first white paper on the Internet that emphasized the concept of Internet sovereignty, requiring all Internet users in China, including foreign organizations and individuals, to abide by Chinese laws and regulations. Chinese Internet companies are now required to sign the Public Pledge on Self-Regulation and Professional Ethics for China Internet Industry, which entails even stricter rules than those in the white paper, according to Jason Q. Ng, a specialist on Chinese media censorship and author of Blocked on Weibo.
The France-based watchdog group Reporters Without Borders ranked China 175 out of 180 countries in its 2014 worldwideindex of press freedom (PDF). Former CFR Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow Matt Pottinger says Chinese media outlets usually employ their own monitors to ensure political acceptability of their content. Censorship guidelines are circulated weekly from the Communist Party propaganda department and the government Bureau of Internet Affairs to prominent editors and media providers.
Certain websites that the government deems potentially dangerouslike Wikipediaare blocked during periods of controversy, such as the June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Specific material considered a threat to political stability is also banned, including controversial photos and search terms. The government is particularly keen on blocking reports of issues that could incite social unrest, like official corruption and ethnic strife. The websites of Bloomberg news service and theNew York Times were blacked out in 2012 after each ran reports on the private wealth of then Party Secretary Xi Jinping and Premier Wen Jiabao. Restrictions were also placed on micro-blogging services in April 2012 in response to rumors of a coup attempt in Beijing involving the disgraced former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai. Censors were also swift to block any mention of an October 2013 attack on Tiananmen Square by individuals from Xinjiang province, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority group.
More than a dozen government bodies review and enforce laws related to information flow within, into, and out from China. The most powerful monitoring body is the Communist Party's Central Propaganda Department (CPD), which coordinates with General Administration of Press and Publication and State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television to ensure content promotes party doctrine. Ng says that the various ministries once functioned as smaller fiefdoms of control, but have recently been more consolidated under the State Council Information Office, which has taken the lead on Internet monitoring.
Some estimates say that the government employs roughly 100,000 people, hired both by the state and private companies, to constantly monitor China's Internet. Additionally, the CPD gives media outlets editorial guidelines as well as directives restricting coverage of politically sensitive topics. In one high-profile incident involving the liberal Guangdong magazine Southern Weekly, government censors rewrote the paper's New Year's message from a call for reform to a tribute to the Communist Party. The move triggered mass demonstrations by the staff and general public, who demanded the resignation of the local propaganda bureau chief. While staff and censors reached a compromise that would theoretically relax some controls, much of the censorship remained in place.
The Chinese government deploys myriad ways of censoring the Internet. The Golden Shield Project, colloquially known as the Great Firewall, is the center of the government's online censorship and surveillance effort. Its methods include bandwidth throttling, keyword filtering, and blocking access to certain websites. According to Reporters Without Borders, the firewall makes large-scale use of Deep Packet Inspection technology to block access based on keyword detection. As Ng points out, the government also employs a diverse range of methods to induce journalists to censor themselves, including dismissals and demotions, libel lawsuits, fines, arrests, and forced televised confessions.
As of December, 2014, forty-four journalists wereimprisoned in China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a U.S.-based watchdog on press freedom issues. In 2009, Chinese rights activist Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to eleven years in prison for advocating democratic reforms and freedom of speech in Charter 08, a 2008 statement signed by more than two thousand prominent Chinese citizens that called for political and human rights reforms and an end to one-party rule. When Liu won the Nobel Peace Prize, censors blocked the news in China. A year later, journalist Tan Zuoren was sentenced to five years in prison for drawing attention to government corruption and poor construction of school buildings that collapsed and killed thousands of children during the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province. Early 2014 saw the government detain Gao Yu, a columnist who was jailed on accusations of leaking a Party communiqu titled Document 9.
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Media Censorship in China - Council on Foreign Relations