Chinese bloggers hail Green Dam ‘victory’

Chinese bloggers hail Green Dam ‘victory’
By Kathrin Hille in Beijing
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: July 1 2009 13:46 | Last updated: July 1 2009 13:46
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/744ae9be-6639-11de-a034-00144feabdc0.html


A garden party in east Beijing billed as a protest against a government plan to fit all computers with Green Dam, a controversial web filtering software, turned into a celebration on Wednesday after the programme was postponed.

“The government has learned a valuable lesson that you cannot treat your citizens like that,” said Ai Weiwei, an outspoken artist who had invited internet users to spend the day in a garden restaurant and off the web to mark the day, originally the government’s deadline for the program’s introduction.

About 200 bloggers, artists, journalists and students frolicked on the lawn and sipped ice-cold beer, many wearing T-Shirts mocking Green Dam.

Mr Ai, holding court on the terrace in a pink T-Shirt, declared the government’s last-minute climbdown a victory for public opinion.

Indeed, the announcement by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Tuesday night that the deadline for the blanket introduction of Green Dam would be delayed followed a barrage of ridicule and scorn on the internet, China’s freest public space and one closely watched by the political leadership.

But there is much more to the episode than a trial of strength between censors and netizens. While expressing support for Beijing’s effort to protect children from internet pornography, the PC industry opposes the fact that the Chinese government has hand-picked one particular piece of software which was developed by two little known domestic companies instead of recommending a variety of well-tested products already available around the globe.

“We read this also as another case of industrial policy and protectionism,” said the head of a foreign company in China.

The incident resembles attempts to shut foreign encryption technology out of the Chinese market in 2000 and to force the global electronics industry to sign up to WAPI, a domestically-developed wireless standard, in 2004.

These two cases highlight how Beijing might deal with Green Dam in the future.

“They have said they’ll delay it, and ‘delay’ is code for total re-evaluation and potential scrapping,” said Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA, a telecom and media consultancy. “However, as we think these things are driven by the idea that indigenous innovation must be promoted, the people behind this will keep pushing, and this might come back at us in the future from some unexpected corner.”

That is what happened in the case of WAPI. In 2004, the Chinese government surprised the communication industry with an edict that the homegrown wireless encryption standard – in competition to WiFi – would be compulsory for all mobile data products sold in the country. Only just before the May deadline, Wu Yi, then vice-premier, backed down during a visit to the US. After China failed to win recognition for WAPI as an international standard two years later, the industry assumed the episode was over.

But now, WAPI is back, with a demand by the Chinese government that WiFi handsets for sale in the country will only receive approval if they are also equipped with WAPI.

Another pointer is more encouraging. In January 2000, Beijing decreed that all companies and individuals using hardware devices or software programs to encrypt electronic communication needed to apply for government approval to use these products, and approval for all foreign products would be denied – a rule that could have hit the entire electronics industry from computer operating systems to handsets and telecom network servers.

But following an outcry from multinationals and an industry-wide failure to comply, the government ‘clarified’ that the new rules would apply only to products whose main purpose was encryption. Those were never identified, and that ended the whole affair.

Such a quiet death might still be far away for Green Dam. Industry sources said on Wednesday that PC makers would not settle with a mere ‘delay’ and hope for the best. “We still need the dialogue the US government has called for, and it will have to lead to a clear message that this is over,” said one lobbyist.

If that does not work, the industry might need the help of China’s netizens again. In a reminder of how much attention Beijing has come to pay to their voice, the People’s Daily, the Communist party’s mouthpiece, acknowledged on Wednesday the authorities had lost their total control over the spread of information. “In the internet era, everyone has the potential to become a channel for information,” it said in an editorial. “It is as though everyone has a microphone in front of them.”

CHINESE VOICES

‘You have deprived your netizens of the freedom of speech.

You have come to see technology as your mortal enemy.

You have clouded and distorted the truth in collaboration with party mouthpieces.’


‘For the freedom of the internet, for the advancement of internetisation, and for our rights, we are going to acquaint your censorship machine with systematic sabotage and show you just how weak the claws of your censorship really are.’


‘We are going to mark you as the First Enemy of the internet. This is not a single battle; it is but the beginning of a war.’
Anonymous netizens


‘I admit, I can barely express how grateful and moved I feel at being the object of so much care and consideration.

“Blocking pornographic content.” “Filtering harmful websites.” This will stop us from rotting and becoming bad.

“Controlling online time,” clearly shows the deep care for our health. “Checking internet use records” . . . will kill off the urge to do evil from the beginning . . . How can I not be moved?’
Boy Toy’s blog


‘It is widely known that protecting our youth has always been the best pretext for our state to conduct cultural controls. ’
Han Han’s blog