After watching Liu Zhengrong, Deputy Director of the CCP State Council Information Office Internet Control Bureau, talking at a press conference on February 14, 2006, I saw, once again, the shamelessness of a CCP official. Almost every one of them can lie publicly without a trace of embarrassment or discomfort.
I have to "admire" how they have mastered "international standards," while publicly trampling universal standards of honesty, and at the same time using universal standards to respond to criticism from international society. For example, the U.S. annually prepares the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. As a result, the CCP began publishing the U.S. Human Rights Record.
The United States Congress is currently holding a hearing entitled "The Internet in China: A Tool for Freedom or Suppression?" In response, the CCP State Council Information Office held a press conference, at which they claimed that they use "internationally common practices" when defending China's evil internet censorship system. The CCP even claimed that the U.S. Patriot Act inspired this system.
During the press conference, Liu Zherong shamelessly claimed, "We have never sought to control the Internet. The measures that have been taken are all based on regulating the Internet to create a healthy order… so I cannot agree with the word 'control.'" He even shamelessly claimed, "Up to this point, no Chinese citizens have been arrested because of words they have posted to the Internet."
At the same time, Liu Zhengrong once again sent out an invitation to foreign Internet companies, "The Chinese Internet market is huge and open. More and more foreign companies would like a share of the huge profits to be made in China… The Communist regime will not directly interfere with a foreign company's operations. Foreign companies in China should know how to provide lawful services; how they conduct their business is each company's decision."
There is no basis in fact in Liu's speech as I have personally experienced enough to say that not a single word he said is true.
Evidence from my own experience abounds. I am a Chinese citizen, from the legal perspective, but "a danger that should not be contacted" in the eyes of the CCP. I live under police surveillance. I am an independent writer, and often publish articles on the Internet; but my articles are never seen in any mainland media, only in overseas media. Even my name, "Liu Xiaobo," is banned from the mainland newspapers, TV programs, and the portion of the Internet that Chinese people are allowed to see.
For example, if one searches for "Liu Xiaobo" on Google outside of China, 528,000 results are displayed, but if one searches for "Liu Xiaobo" on Google China or Yahoo China, only 21,000 to 22,900 results respectively are shown. The number of results from searches launched outside of China is 20 times higher than the number of results one can obtain from inside China.
Here is something even more outrageous. If one searches "Liu Xiaobo" on Baidu, China's largest search engine, one sees the message "Sorry, there is no "Liu Xiaobo"-related web page.
Google China and Yahoo China are still considered kind, as at least one can view over 20,000 results from their search engines; while Baidu is very "clean."
I want to ask Director Liu: Why is there such a big difference between the number of results from searches launched inside China from those launched outside of China? Is this caused by the CCP or a result of "common international practices"?
Example two: Inside China, almost none of the overseas Chinese websites can be accessed. For example, famous western news agents such as BBC Chinese website, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, Deutsche Welle, and Radio France International etc., Taiwan's Central News Agency, China Times , Liberty Times etc., Hong Kong's Apple Daily , Mingpao News , Chengming magazine, and Open magazine etcetera, and Websites set up by expatriate Chinese such as The Epoch Times , Boxun, Duowei, See China, New Century net, Observe China, ChinaEweekly, Beijing Spring, Democratic China etc, can only be seen via proxy servers such as "Dongtai" (dynamic web), "wujie (ultrasurf)." This is the only way internet users in China can see these overseas Chinese websites.
I want to ask Deputy Director Liu: Do you mean that it is "international common practice" to spend huge sums of money to build massive Internet firewalls, such as the so-called "gold shield project," and install systems that filter "sensitive" words?
Example three. Since the Internet became available in China, many individual and civilian websites publishing thoughts and current politics have been launched in China. These websites are different from government websites and gateway websites. They break through the CCP's Internet blockade and provide Chinese Internet surfers with political information that has been censored by the government. Yet, nearly all of these civilian websites, dedicated to preventing censorship, such as "cultural cutting edge," "constitutional political debate," "democracy and freedom," and "upholding citizen rights net" have been closed and reopened, reopened and closed.
Among them, "democracy and freedom" has been shut down forty seven times, and difficulties were created for the host of this website, Mr. Yedu, on many occasions. At present, these websites have vanished from China. Even university websites have been severely purged. Beijing University's website "Utter mess" (Chinese name Yi Ta Hu Tu) was shut down. Other popular university BBSs were turned into islands isolated from society by "Real Name Registration."
To my knowledge, "Free China Forum" and "Progressing into democracy" are the only remaining civilian websites that still publish government-prohibited material. However these websites use overseas servers and have limited access.
I want to ask Deputy Director Liu Zhengrong: Do you consider closing down websites on such a large scale and purging high school BBSs to be "international common practice?"
Example four: The number of people using the Internet in China is increasing rapidly. At 110 million users, China ranks as the world's second largest Internet usage country. At the same time, Chinese Internet censorship has created the largest group of "thought prisoners" in the world. Huang Qi, Ouyang Yi, Liudi, Du Daobin, Shitao, Luo Yongzhong, Zhanglin, Zheng Yichun, Xu Wanping, Lizhi, and others, are all Internet writers who have been sent to jail for their words. According to the 2005 Worldwide Press Freedom Index report from Reporter without Borders, headquartered in Paris, "Amongst the 167 countries monitored for free news, China is ranked at 159 being amongst one of the countries where censorship of news is most severe. Already 62 Internet dissidents have been sent to jail, a first in the world." Hence Reporters Without Borders has labeled China as the world's largest jailer of political dissidents.
I want to ask Deputy Director Liu Zhenrong: Do you know that China has jailed the world's largest number of people because of their words?
Example five: It is common knowledge that US-based Cisco helped the CCP set up a massive internet firewall—the "Gold Shield project." Many companies entering the Chinese market, including Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google, have also cooperated with the CCP's internet restrictions. By establishing the system of filtering anything that contains "sensitive" words, Microsoft China even shut down Anti's personal blog.
Yahoo is the most treacherous company as they supplied users' personal information to the CCP police, thus playing the role of an accomplice in the arrests of Mr. Shitao and Mr. Lizhi.
I want to ask Deputy Director Liu Zhenrong: Would top internet service providers from democratic America willingly infringe upon free access to the internet if not for pressure from the CCP? The information provided by Yahoo Hong Kong was used to impose heavy prison sentences on Shitao and Lizhi.
This is too much! These examples clearly illustrate that when Deputy Director Liu Zhengrong insists on describing China's despotic tactics as "internationally common practice," he is openly and unashamedly lying to the world.
On November 17, 2005, CCP State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan appeared on Phoenix TV and proclaimed: "China's human rights are the best in the world, human rights in the U.S. are not comparable."
In response to this, I wrote the article titled "Tang Jiaxuan is Rather Thick-Skinned." "Tang Jiaxuan is a shameless person and he is unafraid of lying openly without blushing at all."
I think my comment on Councillor Tang applies equally to Deputy Director Liu.
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