China hits back at US
2010-01-23 18:32
Beijing - Beijing has issued a stinging response to Hillary Rodham Clinton's criticism that it is jamming the free flow of words and ideas on the Internet, accusing the United States of damaging relations between the two countries by imposing its "information imperialism" on China.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu defended China's policies regarding the Web, saying the nation's Internet regulations were in line with Chinese law and did not hamper the cyber activities of the world's largest online population. His remarks followed those made by the US secretary of state, who in a speech Thursday criticised countries engaging in cyberspace censorship, and urged China to investigate computer attacks against Google.
"Regarding comments that contradict facts and harm China-US relations, we are firmly opposed," Ma said in a statement posted Friday on the ministry's Web site. "We urge the US side to respect facts and stop using the so-called freedom of the Internet to make unjustified accusations against China."
In her speech in Washington, Clinton cited China as among a number of countries where there has been "a spike in threats to the free flow of information" over the past year. She also named Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.
A state-run newspaper labelled the appeal from Washington as "information imperialism," and Ma insisted that China had "the most active development of the Internet" of any country.
Washington, meanwhile, carried its message on Internet freedom directly to Chinese bloggers. The US Embassy in Beijing and consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou hosted Internet-streamed discussions with members of the blogging community on Friday afternoon - the latest example of Washington's outreach to Chinese bloggers as a way of spreading its message.
The bloggers met with US diplomats from the political, economic and public affairs sections, who held discussions and answered questions about Clinton's speech. The meetings were similar to a session organised during Obama's visit to China in November.
Zhou Shuguang, who blogs under the name "Zuola," attended the session in Guangzhou and said Clinton's speech resonated deeply with Chinese bloggers frustrated by the content controls.
"We welcome the US bringing this topic to the table for discussion in a diplomatic way," Zhou said.
Internet control is considered a critical matter of state security in China, and Beijing is not expected to offer any concessions. Beijing promotes Internet use for commerce, but heavily censors content it deems pornographic, anti-social or politically subversive and blocks many foreign news and social media sites, including Twitter and Facebook and the popular video site YouTube.
Underscoring such sensitivities, Chinese media published only scant reports on Clinton's speech and Web sites carrying the Foreign Ministry response had disabled their comments pages.
"For many senior leaders in the party, they're going to see this as just a further example of Western misunderstanding of China, Western domination of the agenda, and they're going to be more encouraged to push or defend China's own press policies," said David Bandurski, a Chinese media scholar at the University of Hong Kong.
- SAPA