[ WikiLeaks: China’s Propaganda Chief Behind Google Attack ]
When WikiLeaks released Nov. 29 classified documents involving sensitive issues in China, the communist regime’s Central Propaganda Department (CPD) ordered: “No news reports about the WikiLeaks.”Meanwhile, a number of websites with names similar to WikiLeaks are also being blocked, apparently as insurance that no Web site that includes “Wiki” in the name gets through, including the popular Wikipedia.
WikiLeaks released more than 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables on the 29th. The organization’s editor-in-chief, Australian-born Julian Assange dubbed this release, “Cablegate.”
These recent documents also reveal some embarrassing relations: China’s association with the arms trade between North Korea and Iran, China’s Politburo member(s) ordering the intrusion into Google’s computer systems, and China’s wariness (“scared to death”) over a visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
According to The Telegraph, “The files contain 3,297 cables from [U.S. embassy in] Beijing, 555 from Shanghai, 662 from Guangzhou, 260 from Chengdu 260, 120 from Shenyang, 120 and 950 from Hong Kong, and Beijing will be watching anxiously to see what they contain.”
Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that, previously, China commended WikiLeaks for publishing nearly 400,000 documents in October of classified information about the Iraq War. QQ.com, the largest web portal in China, published an article about these documents that was sent to its over 100 million users. The incident was acclaimed by Chinese netizens as the highest level news publication in China.
This time, however, the CPD ordered, “No news reports about WikiLeaks.” Further, online articles, such as “Diplomatic Risks Caused By WikiLeaks,” were also deleted.
According to RFA, “A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman called on Washington to ‘properly handle’ the situation arising from the WikiLeaks release of documents.”
After the release of the documents, WikiLeaks received DDos (distributed denial of service) cyber attacks, similar to those Google received previously. The Great Firewall has been employed to prevent the majority of Chinese people from visiting WikiLeaks, reported RFA. The above denial tactics were not seen when documents regarding the Iraq War were released.
This censorship order also affected websites with similar names. The Wikipedia and the Wikisource library were blocked by China.
In the past, Wikipedia has been blocked by China for a few times. After 2008, however, people in China could visit webpages on Wikipedia, except those related to the Tiananmen Square Massacre and Falun Gong .
Chinese Wikipedia spokesman Shizhao told RFA, “I don’t know why the Wikisource has been blocked. It’s a bit strange, because Wikipedia, WikiLeaks, and Wikisource have no connection with each other.”
Read original Chinese article.
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