Kristi Mansolf
LIBR 244-11THE INTERNET IN CHINA
Running head: ISSUES OF ACCESS TO THE INTERNET IN CHINA
Kristi Mansolf
LIBR 244-11 Online Searching, Fall 2007
San JoseStateUniversity
Professor: Virginia Tucker
December 7, 2007
Abstract
Google has entered and been accepted into the Chinese marketplace on China’s terms.
Several issues are brought up as a result of the economic and politicalunion between
China and Google. This paper explores the internet in China, more specifically, the Great
Firewall of China, which limits internet access to their masses, and how this technology
works. Also considered are the possible impacts of limiting the flow of information on
culture and society, both on China and on the free world, and what effect this restriction
on the internet will have in the future as China develops to potentially have the most
internet users in the world.
Introduction
Due to economic pressures, competition and the motivation to create a global
market, Google has negotiated its way into the booming Chinese marketplace. Google’s
main product is providing a search for information and China has strict censorship laws.
Fears of uprisings and political dissent brought about by past events in China’s repressive
and violent history have laid the foundation for China’s response to the free flow of
information over the internet and the resulting restrictions the government wants in place
if there is to be an information resource disseminating information in Communist China.
The relationship between China and Google seems all the more unlikely in that
Google’s roots are in the democratic United States where the freedom of information and
freedom of speech are taken for granted, while China’s roots are in Leninist institutions
and political structures transported there in the fifties during the Stalin era. (Batelle,
2005) In contrast to China’s antiquated political policies is the recent entry of China into
the world marketplace utilizing contemporary market structures. (Batelle, 2005). In
order to achieve a place of recognition in the Chinese marketplace, Google had to
compromise its democratic principles and provide information according to China’s
rules, which has left Google open to widespread criticism. This paper explores the
relationship between China and the western world specifically as it relates to the internet,
an information resource that, to us in the United States brings the outside world of
personal choice into our living room, and the political and social ramifications of China’s
censorship of the internet,
Background
The Great Firewall of China is the common term for the censorship of the internet
in China. The actual project is called the Golden Shield Project. Development of the
project began in 1998 with operations starting in 2003. The intent was to construct a
network for the police that used communications and the computer to make them more
effective. A large exhibition was held in 2006, the Comprehensive Exhibition on the
Chinese Information System. The equipment at the exhibition included internet security
systems and other security devices sold by western exhibitors and purchased by the
police. Over 30,000 police participated in this project.
The Great Firewall is a network firewall that blocks IP addresses from being
routed through proxy servers at contact points for the internet. The system can also plant
viruses and other undesirable elements into the user’s computer if the user goes to the
“wrong” website. Other elements of the system include the following, as reported by
Greg Walton of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic
Development: “…the aim is to integrate a gigantic online database with an all-
encompassing surveillance network – incorporating speech and face recognition, closed-
circuit television, smart cards, credit records, and Internet surveillance technologies.”
(Wikipedia, 2007) The Great Firewall is China’s way to keep their population in check.
When people go to websites that are forbidden, even by accident, someone is monitoring
their activities. People who chose to exercise free speech and criticize the government, or
even worse, organize into groups and criticize the government, can be arrested and go to
jail for ten years.
Content is censored through a variety of methods, including but not limited to, IP
blocking, URL filtering, packet filtering, redirection and connection reset. (Wikipedia,
2007) Long delays can be experienced by users at international websites. (Wikipedia,
2007)
Some of the content that is censored over the internet in China includes
democratic activists, displays of police brutality, Taiwanese sites, sites carrying religious
content, obscenity, pornography, criminal activity and most blogging sites.
The blocking works on different layers. If a user tried to access a site that is
blacklisted by the government, when the request reaches the router, it won’t connect. If
the site is not blocked, the request will be examined to see if the content could in any way
be controversial. If it is determined the request is controversial, an error message
appears to the user. (Wikipedia, 2007) One particularly sensitive issue for China is the
Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Messages are searched to see if there is any
reference to this event that the China government wants to keep out of the public eye.
Google created an Asian-based version of their product in 2000. It was quite
successful and could be accessed in China. (Thompson, 2006) Some material was
getting through the censors. Because Google was not operating in China, China had no
authority over Google. Google started having problems operating in China in 2002 when
the government completely blocked the site using the Great Firewall – a tool used to
block companies not operating in China. (Thompson, 2006) For companies operating in
China, the government threatens them with many different penalties to keep them in line.
(Thompson, 2006) Private sector companies that operate physically in China have to
configure their own routers to meet the specifications of the Chinese government at the
borders of foreign countries. (Thompson, 2006) The site went back up after two weeks,
but the results were not satisfying. After extensive negotiations, in January of 2006,
Google announced that it would comply with China’s requirements to censor its service
while operating in China. (Thompson, 2006)
Although the Chinese internet focuses more on entertainment, chat, discussion
rooms and commercial types of elements, steering people away from sensitive topics, and
any censorship of the internet lays a foundation for heavy-handed government regimes to
control the thoughts and consciousness of their people.
Discussion
Ways have been discovered to avoid the internet censors in a country by using
proxy servers to remain anonymous over the internet. (Zeller, January, 2006) There are
groups and individuals working on the issue of censorship of the internet.
The OpenNet Initiative ( is composed of linking researchers
from the University of Toronto, HarvardLawSchool and CambridgeUniversity. It in an
international human rights project that keeps track of internet censorship techniques.
(Zeller, January, 2006). The Electronic Frontier Foundation ( works with
Tor, a communications network that helps to keep communications anonymous. (Zeller,
January, 2006) Software is also available to turn Windows equipment into a proxy
server. (Zeller, January, 2006) Freegate is such a program.
Tom Zeller opens an article about the internet and China, written shortly
after Google announced it would be working under the rules of the Chinese government,
with a reference to Bill Gates declaring that a company can agree to censor the internet,
but if people want to access information, they’ll find a way. (Zeller, February, 2006)
The article is closed with a question posed by Rebecca MacKinnon, while a research
fellow at the BeckmanCenter for Internet and Society at HarvardLawSchool, who feels
the email negotiations between China and the four companies who operate there
(including Yahoo and Google) may someday become available and people will know the
details of their negotiations and the context in which they came to fruition. Ms.
MacKinnon eludes that these negotiations may not reflect favorably upon the
participating companies.
By censoring information, China is setting a precedent for other one-party states
that realize to develop they need the internet, but fear its political reach if it is not
censored. (Dickie, 2007)
Social responsibility for controlling what information people have access to and
limiting their freedom of speech doesn’t end here. The people who dissent are sent to
prison and tortured due to the “capital markets helping fund the local enterprises that
make the censorship system work and whose own multinationals have tailored their
operations in China to avoid upsetting the party commissars.” (Dickie, 2007) Yahoo, for
example, has been the subject of U. S. Congressional hearings for their role in helping
locate political individuals in China.
While Kai-Fu Lee, the new head of Google operations in China talks idealistically
to Chinese students about how the internet has the ability to connect their small, rural
villages and bring information, such as online course materials from major
universities in China to the masses, Google’s product in China does not feed into the
potential for building social consciousness. An important question to consider is whether
or not Google, whose motto is “Don’t be Evil,” can remain pure in a world of corruption.
Many feel Google has already crossed a line of no return by entering the Chinese market
and agreeing to censor information. Previously looked at as the model for internet
communications, there is now a question in people’s minds that Google is perhaps just
another corrupt corporation that will sell out to advance their product. Even if Google’s
intent is pure, the availability of their product in a not “Google” form has caused Google,
according to some, to have lost control of their product – it has been altered by an
entity whose intent is not recognized as being pure worldwide, so is it still Google,
and does it still reflect the idealistic values of Google?
Conclusion
Small headway has been made in leveling the communications playing field
worldwide, but headway has been made. Possible goals to this end could be when all
people receive the information they seek as it was intended by the author to be received,
unchanged and democratically. Although these goals will probably not be met in our
lifetime, there is a concern that by entering the Chinese market, two landmark things
happened: Google has tarnished their previously sparkling reputation by agreeing to
cooperate with a repressive and violent government that wants to keep their population in
the dark about political uprisings and change – and now it seems Google could be
capable of almost anything to those of us living in a democratic society; the burgeoning
Chinese internet market will grow and possibly surpass other internet markets worldwide
in the near future – will this mean that the majority of the world internet market will be
censored? To many, Google is walking a precarious tightrope that has the potential to
change the way the internet functions worldwide. The cultural and social ramifications
are impressive as one considers the rural populations of China flocking to the cities,
being entertained and subdued by the internet, and being subjected to a way of thought
that is not based on freedom of speech. Although France and Germany censor their
internet for certain references to past Nazi brutality, it is only one facet of their
background they are censoring. China is shaping the way their people think about the
world and how the people perceive their place in the world. In the United States, as a
country where there is so much information available and the sources and content
of the information are so very diverse, our challenge is sorting through and
determining what information is relevant to us, what we agree with, which presidential
candidate or politician is really going to do the job we want, or are they just selling us
one product now but won’t deliver the goods when in office. We have choices where in
China, they have repression. It is still too early to tell who will win this interesting battle
of wits over the access to information. Hopefully, for the good of mankind, Google will
prevail, and their Chinese internet product will evolve to a more democratic form that
will facilitate the spread ofinformation, enabling the people of China to one day come
into their own as a people and not continue having their government direct their
thinking.
References
Batelle, J. (2005). The search: How Google and its rivals rewrote the rules of business
and transformed our culture. New York: Penguin Group.
Dickie, M. (November 13, 2007). China traps online dissent how technology is
helping Beijing censor the internet. Financial Times, Asia Edition. Retrieved
November 29, 2007, from
Thompson, C. (April 23, 2006). Google’s China problem (and China’s Google
Problem). The New York Times. Retrieved November 28, 2007, from
Wikipedia. (last modified December 3, 2007). Golden Shield project. Retrieved
December 5, 2007, from
Zeller, Jr., T. (January 29, 2006). How to outwit the world’s internet censors. The
New York Times. Retrieved November 28, 2007, from
Zeller, Jr., T. (February 6, 2006). Internet lions turn paper tiger in China. The
New York Times. Retrieved November 28, 2007, from
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