China Lifts Block on Web Sites

Associated Press/NetSter News Service

* posted on "www.netster.com"

May 17, 2002, 11:25 AM

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - China has stopped blocking access to the Web sites of at least three Western news organizations that Chinese have long been barred from seeing.

The Web sites of The Associated Press, Reuters and The Washington Post were accessible Friday from Internet cafes in Beijing and Shanghai.

Other foreign media sites, including CNN and Taiwanese newspapers, still were blocked, as were organizations deemed subversive, such as the banned Falun Gong spiritual group.

The Shanghai police Internet Safety Monitoring Office would not say why the sites were made accessible after years of blocking, or how long the new access would last.

But analysts pointed out that the easing coincided with the breakup of China Telecom. The former phone monopoly was split into two companies Thursday in preparation for lifting a ban on foreign investment in Chinese telecommunications companies.

Analysts said China may have lifted the blocks to attract foreign investors by making the industry look more open and modern.

"China wants to put a nice face on its telecommunications enterprises because they're about to go out and raise money," said Steven Schwankert, editor of Computerworld Hong Kong magazine.

China blocks access to foreign news sites in an attempt to limit access to information outside the wholly state-controlled media.

Some 30 million Chinese use the Internet and that number is growing fast, the government said.

The communist government has struggled to balance a desire to encourage the Internet as a commercial medium with efforts to stifle political dissent.

Web sites are blocked by software installed at the handful of stations where the Internet enters China via undersea cables, Schwankert said.

"U.S. corporations use the same kind of technology to keep employees from accessing pornography," he said.

In October, China temporarily lifted blocks on the Web sites of The Washington Post and a few other media during a Shanghai meeting of President Bush and other Pacific Rim leaders.

The blocking resumed after the meeting ended.

Foreign news reports also are available on Web sites run by other organizations.

The Shanghai police's Internet office - which calls itself the "Netpolice" - published a new warning in newspapers Friday threatening harsh punishments for anyone reproducing information from subversive or pornographic sites. It also listed e-mail addresses where the public could report violators.

Internet bars are required to keep records of sites its users visit and to report attempts to open those deemed subversive. Thousands of Internet bars have been closed by police for failing to install monitoring software.