CHINA: In a major censorship initiative the Chinese authorities are to introduce strict new laws governing the use of the internet.
While Chinese leaders are keen to demonstrate that they run a modern, cosmopolitan country ready to play a leading role in global affairs, they are steadily tightening their grip on access to information.
Under new regulations announced yesterday, all internet service providers operating in "sensitive and strategic sectors", such as news sites, bulletin board services and online forums, must record details about users, including their viewing times. They will be required to pass on to the Ministry of Information and Technology the account numbers, addresses and telephone numbers of the users.
Internet providers will also be required under the new laws to report anyone breaking the new laws. They will have to inform the Ministry of Information and Technology, the Ministry of Public Security and the Bureau for the Protection of State Secrets.
Internet cafe operators will also have to fulfil a list of requirements for a licence, including installing police-approved software to bar access to games and illegal sites, and to record customers' details.
Already the authorities are blocking access to many web sites, including a number of key foreign news organisations such as CNN, BBC, the Washington Post and Time magazine.
During the APEC summit meeting in Shanghai last October, attended by President Bush and other world leaders, the block on these web sites was lifted. But hours after the conclusion of the summit meeting, with the world leaders on their way home, China's rulers resumed blocking web access to foreign news bodies.
The harsh new regulations announced yesterday will require service providers to install software to screen and copy e-mails that include "sensitive material".Under the new rules providers must end a transmission immediately if they detect obscene material or "subversive" information, such as articles seen to advocate terrorism, threaten national security and ethnic unity or harm China's reputation.
Figures released this week show the number of internet users in China increased almost 50 per cent last year to 33.7 million at the end of 2001.