An Australian government website was back online for China's 22 million Internet users for the first time in 18 months after complaints to Chinese officials over censorship, Australian officials said today.
The foreign affairs website, www.dfat.gov.au, returned to computer screens yesterday, a day after Australian foreign affairs officials met with China's charge d'affairs, Mr Xie Xiaoyan, in Canberra.
"In the meeting we stressed the importance of access to the site by Australian travellers," a foreign affairs spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said the Chinese government denied any censorship, saying technical problems were to blame for blacking out the website since late 1999.
But glitches have kept the Australian site, which contains information about global human rights dialogues and consular advice warning tourists about the potential for violence in various parts of China, from being accessed in China.
The spokeswoman said the charge d'affairs indicated that at no stage had China's government blocked the department's website and offered to help to solve the problem.
Last month, Australian diplomats in Beijing sent a formal letter to the Chinese government expressing concern over why the website had been offline in China for 18 months.
The website was accessible briefly in June during a visit to China by Australia's communications minister, Mr Richard Alston, which was hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Information, which controls Internet access.
Late last year, the Chinese government introduced tough new bans on Internet use - targeting information that it feels might harm the country's unification policy, endanger national security or subvert the government.