SOUTH KOREA - Chinese government recently blocked the China Daily’s Korean-language news website. This site has gained popularity over the last seven months among the Korean minority nationality in China, and among Koreans. The Chosun Daily Chinese edition was also blocked before this incident, as is one of the largest newspapers in South Korea.
Dailychina.net is the first Korean Web site to be blocked since China set its new rules on Internet news content on September 25, 2005.
The site has received enormous attention from the media in South Korea since its launch on March 19, 2005. The hit rate on the website once surpassed 10,000 daily when articles with photos criticizing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for carrying out executions in public were republished by DAUM, the largest comprehensive Web site in South Korea.
The main news sources for chinadaily.net are overseas Chinese media, including The Epoch Times, Observe China and other Chinese Web sites that report the truth about China. It has become the Korean media forerunner in reporting the news about The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party—a book that exposes the true nature of the CCP, and the grand trend of withdrawing from the CCP.
It focuses on critical issues such as the China’s deportation of North Korean refugees, the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, the June 4 Tiananmen massacre and the persecution of other human rights groups. In addition, it carried an international online signature campaign against China hosting the 2008 Olympic Games.
According to Mr. Xu, Editor-in-Chief of dailychina.net and a Korean citizen, the Web site is blocked possibly because China wants to gain control over the Internet to prohibit large numbers of the Korean minority nationality in China access to the sites about the democratic spirit. There had been highly active and spirited online discussion forums between Koreans and China’s Korean minority.
Mr. Xu expressed regret for the blockage. He hopes that the China Daily can help Koreans who are planning to invest in or study in China understand the real China, and that China’s Korean minority can obtain real freedom by breaking free from the CCP’s tight control.
Mr. Xu said that many Korean entrepreneurs in China, overseas students and China’s Korean minority sent email asking for the software to break through the Internet blocking, so they can continue to visit the Daily China Web site.
