THE Chinese authorities have closed off access to dozens of information sites on the Internet in a long expected clamp down on unapproved news on the international network. The Irish Times appears to have been one of a number of western newspapers affected by the restrictions.
The Internet has been available in China since mid 1995 and has 20,000 subscribers, many of whom share their access with other computer users. News is strictly controlled by the communist authorities, and western Hong Kong and other foreign newspapers, are available only in big hotels.
The government has already banned the unofficial use of satellite dishes to pick up foreign television stations. Internet sites which are no longer accessible since last week include CNN, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine.
The Irish Times was accessible until last week but attempts since then to call up the newspaper through China Net, the only public network, result in a message saying the site is unavailable or has moved to a new address (which is not the case).
The ban, which first became known when subscribers rang major western embassies in Beijing to inquire about failure to access certain sites, appears primarily aimed at human rights groups. The Amnesty International site has been closed, as has the London based Tibet Information Network and sites used by Hong Kong democracy groups and dissident organisations in the US.
Dissident groups can more easily circumvent the ban than major newspapers by moving around to new web sites, according to a Beijing observer. He said the move came as no surprise though the scope of the "great wall" erected by the Chinese in cyberspace was greater than expected.
Among over 100 sites reportedly blocked are several offering sex related news and pictures, including a site operated by Playboy magazine. A Chinese official said that it took a while to distinguish which sites had "problems" and which had not and that in the meantime all the sites had been temporarily stopped.
Since setting up ChinaNet, the authorities have moved to control the flow of information. In February they issued regulations requiring any network offering Internet services to subject itself to examination by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.
"Neither organisations nor individuals are allowed to engage in activities at the expense of state security and secrets," the New China News Agency said.
The new restrictions will cause concern in Hong Kong, which reverts to China in June next year. Estimates of those with access to Internet range as high as 50,000 to 100,000, many of them students with access to college computers. Professors tend to print e-mail addresses on visiting cards.