The Other Great Wall: Censorship in China

Late one night in an Internet cafe in Shanghai, as people were clearing out and only the owner and a couple of kids playing video games were left, I decided to give Chinese censorship a test. I took a look over my shoulder, typed in "Tiananmen square 1989", and clicked search. No Red Guard soldiers stormed the building, but the results were telling. Many of the sites that came up were of general tourist information, inviting me to visit the Great Hall of the People, the Monument to the People's Heroes, and Mao Zedong Memorial Hall. No mention of any protesters being mowed down by the Chinese military yet. A few sites with informative soundings titles did appear, but when I clicked on these, a window opened up telling me that the sites were unavailable. When I did a google search for images using "Tiananmen square 1989", I got nothing. Not one image!

The photo that is now ubiquitous everywhere else in the world, that of a lone man in a face-off with a row of Chinese tanks, has somehow been completely erased from Chinese cyberspace. I actually got the chills thinking about how a social event as significant as China's crackdown on demonstrations that took place in Beijing in the summer of 1989 could be so thoroughly removed from public awareness.


Just in case you forgot what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989, I'll give you the short version of it:

For several months in 1989, a crowd of several thousand pro-democracy students gathered in Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, and staged a massive protest. Foreign journalists brought the protester's story to the rest of the world and people everywhere watched to see the result of the pro-democracy movement's stand-off with the Chinese government. Most memorable for Americans perhaps was when students built an effigy of the statue of liberty. When the protesters defied government calls to disperse, a split emerged within the Communist Party of China on how to respond to the protesters. Out of the party turmoil, a hardliner faction emerged and the decision was made to quell the protests. Army tanks and infantry were sent into Tiananmen Square to disperse the protesters.

Estimates of the resulting civilian deaths vary - 23 according to the Communist Party of China. 400–800 according to the CIA. 2600 according to the Chinese Red Cross.

Following the violence the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress the remaining supporters of the movement. They banned the foreign press and strictly controlled coverage of the event inside China (evidently to this day).

So, how does a government control information about an event like this? Relatively easily in a country with one political party that has control of all newspapers, television and radio. But how does China manage to maintain this control of information in the "information age"? What about the Internet?

Well, Access to the Internet is strictly regulated in China. Internet cafes, called Wangba, are required to keep detailed logs of their customers' online activity on file for 60 days. If a user tries to access forbidden Web sites, the Internet cafe must disconnect the user and file a report with state agencies. Penalties for violations include fines and even imprisonment. Also, every Chinese person who signs up for Internet service at home must register with his or her local police department within 30 days.

Once on line, personal e-mail is also filtered through a screening system. Text and subject lines are scanned and blocked if anything objectionable is found. So, if I were to send an e-mail with the subject "Free Tibet" from inside China, to someone in china, it most likely would simply not arrive. As a result it is very difficult for people in China to exchange information about certain topics.

What about trying to search the web for information from inside China? The companies like Yahoo and Google, have cut a deal in order to operate in China. In order for search engine companies to work in China they have to agree to censor certain topics. As a result the top 10 Google results using the key words "Tibet," "Taiwan China" and "equality" were all blocked, as were eight of the top 10 results using "democracy China" and "dissident China." Also, sites like Wikipedia, which allow people to contribute to them freely and are difficult to monitor, are simply banned all together in China. The result is a very effective control of information.

When it comes to politics, China has a media completely without dissenting opinions or any critical debate on subjects of real importance. Chinese people trying to find an independent source of information about Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, SARS, the Falun Gong movement, opposition political parties, and anti-Communist movements, won't find anything easily on the Internet.

When I cautiously spoke to Chinese people about some of these same subjects, they either had no knowledge of them, had a very different knowledge of them than my own, or I couldn't tell because they refused to talk. More than one person told me plainly that they were fully aware that the government censored their information. However, the most widespread reaction I got was that they just weren't really interested in politics or the news. Of course, why would they be? Any topic that is even slightly controversial isn't covered.