According to China’s official media, Xinhuanet.com, on the afternoon of September 9, Internet Bar Associations of over 30 cities and provinces in China published a joint statement in Xi'an City, pledging that they will assist the Chinese regime in purifying the Internet environment.
Representatives of the 30 localities including metropolitan cities and provinces directly under the central regime such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shanxi Province, and large cities such as Dalian, Xiamen, Guangzhou, and provincial capitals, stated that they will follow the rules and regulations set by the authorities, assist the government to crack down underground Internet bars, proactively purify the Internet bar market, guide youths away from Internet bars, improve the Internet bar environment, avoid any potential risk to Internet security, and protect consumer rights.
Radio Free Asia interviewed Chen Jianying, head of customer service for 'China Internet Bars Online.' Chen thinks that this act will benefit the exchange of information between managers of Internet bars in different areas.
“The joint statement from the associations is very effective. The main issues are pirate music and DVD products in some isolated areas and [other] issues relating to young people. Our next step will be designing specific measures on how to serve our customers better through this joint statement of the organizations.”
An excuse for media control and censorship?
Former editor of the Shenzhen Lawyer magazine, sociologist He Quinglian, who now lives in the U.S., thinks that since China’s professional organizations are required to be linked to government agencies, this statement is a reflection of media control by the Beijing regime before its anniversary on October 1.
Says He, “China’s professional associations are managed by the government and are established under government agencies. They have two sides – they represent the government in front of business and represent business in front of government. Therefore this statement of self-discipline was actually arranged by the government. Its aim is to control the media, especially before the 60th Anniversary of the Chinese communist regime. The government wants to eliminate any different opinions to build a so-called harmonious environment.”
This pledge of “Professional Self-Discipline” to “Purify Internet Bars,” apparently at the urging of the Beijing regime appears to be another version of the “self-discipline” pledge that has been required of U.S. high tech corporations such as Cisco, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo regarding any content found to be 'subversive' or objectionable to Beijing.
According to this pledge of self-discipline, Internet bars will focus on resisting indecent and pornographic content, eliminating harmful information, respecting and protecting intellectual property, condemning any communication that is “harmful to social morality and the socialist spiritual civilization.”
Zhu Ruifeng, the editor of China’s www.rmjdw.com, thinks that the Chinese regime’s monitoring and control of the Internet not only blocks normal communication, but also deprives Chinese people of their legal rights.
“These days many people go to an Internet forum to report injustice and publish articles expressing dissatisfaction with the government. I think the joint statement was made under pressure from local governments and is to stop people from appealing.
Actually it is to limit people’s legal rights. For example, our Internet site is against corruption, so it is blocked every day. When blocking fails, hackers will attack the site. When hacking fails a notice to close the site will be issued immediately by the government.
China has its constitution, so if someone browses some Internet sites or publishes some illegal information, their actions should be evaluated according to the law, so there is no need for [this kind of] self-discipline.”
