China: The Enemy of Internet freedom

China is the world's biggest enemy of Internet freedom: Photo: Aussie Yeti Photoshop CC

General: China is home to the world's biggest online community, with 800 million active internet users, 57.7 percent of the population, and about two in five Chinese still use offline. But as the communist government, known as the enemy of internet freedom, and its internet became most restrictive over a decade because the authoritarian regime ranks in the world as the number one worst abuser of internet freedom.
Aim: The largest population in the world with over 1.3 billion people totally lacks access to freedom of expression particularly after 2015. This report directly aims at tackling the problems with internet freedom in this country and profoundly acknowledges that the Chinese people deserve and have every right to know what is happening in the world and in China.

While dedicating this piece to those freedom-loving Chinese people, this report strongly and proudly acknowledges that their most fundamental rights and freedoms must be respected and protected. In contrast in the great nation of Australia founded upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, peace and humanity for which many sacrificed their lives and fortunes, there is a treasured opportunity for freedom of expression.

Coverage: This report will sum up some of the facts of China’s internet censorship and aggressive nature. Since Xi Jinping became in power in 2013 censorship of all forms of media has severely tightened and all propaganda outlets must obey strict rules and any attempt to resist or undermine its authority or political stability is severely punished.

China’s Reform Rhetoric is a Joke?

In 2013 just after Xi gained in power, everything seemed that the internet was transforming into a vibrant political platform for the estimated 8000 million Chinese netizens. But not long, after the regime has carried out the biggest and most sophisticated online censorship operations in the world, making its long rhetoric of opening-up and reforms as a joke. Therefore the hope of the world has gone its separate way as China stepped from autocracy into a modern dictatorship, while eliminating any critics toward the communist party (Economy, 2018).

Internet Censorship

Unfortunately, thousands of tech entrepreneurs and analysts including few international heads of state who had attended the China’s second world Internet Conference held in Wuzhen in December 2015 and unexpectedly President Xi ironically set-out his own version of China’s future internet and strongly warned against foreign interference in other countries internal affairs, deliberately saying individual countries should chose their “own path of cyber development” independently. This shows Xi in his mind has already created China’s internet a world unto itself while all its contents are closely monitored and managed by the party while at the same time the authorities have devoted continually increasing resources to controlling online contents. These repressive policies led to a rapid fall in the number of blog-posts on unbanned websites such as Sina Weibo, the only social blog in China similar to Twitter and silenced most of the vital views advocating reforms and opening-up (Economy, 2018).

How China Does It?

In 1990s, a man namely Fang Binxing had developed transformative software called “Golden Shield” and renamed it as the “Great Firewall of China” that motorised the regime to investigate thoroughly or constantly keep an eye on any data being received or sent and to barricade destination IP addresses and domain names. By the 2000s, this eventually caused the enmity of hundreds of thousands of web-users and equipped the authorities to impose a great censorship we have witnessed today (Economy, 2018).

Websites Shutdown

In 1995, it was opened to the public and then in 1996, only 150,000 used the internet as the regime ironically declared it as the Year of the Internet. As of 2018, more than 10,000 websites are blocked in China under its new censorship policy, which completely prevents all users from accessing prescribed websites from within the country, under politically “sensitive” information (Economy, 2018).

Total Control of the Internet

After the Great Firewall, China has launched another internet censorship tool, known as the “Great Canon” which developed into an another vast hardware and software system, not only blocking websites, even using VPNs, but it also has the capability to stop traffic as it enters or exits China and the capacity to change and replace contents individually and spread its propaganda easily as they move around the internet. All these are implemented under its “Cyber-security Law” which came into effect on June 1, 2017. 

From the “Great Firewall to 50 Cent Army”, two newly launched US books explained the technical methods the regime uses to keep under control information, endorse or advocate its propaganda viewpoints and disapprove of access to sensitive topics, but also how censorship is an important tax on the country’s tech sector (Economy, 2018) (Hutzler, 2018).

Demonstrating Propaganda

The major concern is that the Great Firewall regulates the internet internally and its role in the internet censorship is to block access to selected websites and to slow down cross-border internet traffic and the newly launched Great Canon which is equipped with new tools to control the internet in different ways, blocking all websites or preventing access to any information, considered “sensitive content”. 

Above all, both tools frequently campaign for Chinese state-run propaganda outlets whereas the regime’s internet population has reportedly reached 751 million in 2017 while the WeChat messaging app has 889 million monthly and the Sina Weibo, Chinese equivalent of Twitter has 340 million monthly. These crowd-users generate huge profits for one party state with other industries such as gaming-sector, bulletin-boards and live-steaming spaces while displaying the state’s muscle in social control. The above statistics back why the regime moreover sees the internet as the core battle-ground (Economy, 2018) (Hutzler, 2018).

While calling China as the enemy of internet freedom, the international media watchdogs including Reporters without Borders and Committee to Protect Journalists since 2008, have repeatedly and strongly called upon the communist regime to ease the heavy handed government internet censorship and urged China to respect the fundamental rights of its citizens including “freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration,” guaranteed in the Article 35 of its constitution.

Conclusion

This report has touched upon several of facts and figures, particularly never-ending crackdowns on internet freedom and the heavy censorship including how the regime controls information, approve or promote its propaganda outlets and denying access to sensitive-topics and attempted to point-out internet user populations in China and how the regime is controlling them by imposing several new laws and policies (Economy, 2018) (Hutzler, 2018) (Ruan, 2017).

Despite the embarrassing nature of the regime, the heavy-handed crackdowns on internet freedom and constant internet censorship are slowing the global calls for reforms and opening-up, though for now the international community, however, shows no signs of stepping down anytime soon to put more pressure on China and so it's time for China to give up its totalitarian nature before it’s too late.

References
Economy, E. C., 2018. The great firewall of China: Xi Jinping’s internet shutdown. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown
[Accessed 15 11 2018].

Hutzler, K., 2018. How China censors its internet and controls information, from Great Firewall to 50 Cent Army: two new books explain. [Online]
Available at: https://www.scmp.com/culture/books/article/2144692/how-china-censors-its-internet-and-controls-information-great-firewall
[Accessed 15 11 2018].

Ruan, L., 2017. Internet Censorship: How China does it. [Online]
Available at: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/internet-censorship-how-china-does-it/
[Accessed 15 11 2018].