World Tibet Network News Wednesday, Jul 01, 1998

Tuesday June 30, 1998

By Paul Eckert

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of Commerce William Daley Tuesday put a cyberspace slant on visiting President Bill Clinton's calls for a freer China, urging Beijing to let the Internet grow without state interference. "I would strongly urge China's leadership to let the Internet evolve with very limited government control," Daley told faculty and students at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Touting the promise of the global computer network to students of Shanghai's leading technology university, Daley warned: "To constrict it would almost defeat its purpose. "To limit its reach would be to deny China the social, intellectual and commercial connections which are demanded in today's global village," he said.

Daley's speech echoed one of the main themes of Clinton who has made a forceful case on the link between personal freedom and national prosperity during his China tour. Clinton, who is in China along with other administration officials, has been granted rare access to the Chinese public through two live television broadcasts and a radio talk show. Ordinary Chinese have only in the last several years begun to enjoy access to the Internet, which initially had been the privilege of a small community of scientists in the communist nation. But China, like other authoritarian states, has sought to keep a tight leash on political content as well as pornography. It blocks access to the websites of many foreign news media, including Reuters and the New York Times. Special filters screen out Internet web sites with political connotations, such as "Taiwan," "dissident" or "Tibet." Daley told the university audience he was concerned that China would turn the Internet into a network that "will only provide access to Ch

inese information sources, therefore shutting out others from around the world." Despite Beijing's efforts to clamp the same tight rein on the Internet as it has placed on China's mass media, enterprising surfers are finding ways around government censors by logging on through accounts in Hong Kong and other areas.

Political dissidents exchange e-mail with Chinese supporters abroad, while some have started an underground electronic magazine and a newsletter containing hard-to-access reports from Chinese language media outside the country. Industry experts estimate that just 600,000 of China's 1.2 billion people are logged on to the Internet, but predict that figure will mushroom to almost six million by 2002. Daley earlier Thursday visited the Shanghai Customs House to underscore the role of U.S. firms in wiring customs clearing facilities to make it easier to bring goods into China.

5