China sidesteps internet criticism

A senior Chinese government official has said that he welcomes closer international ties to develop the country’s burgeoning digital media sector, but also delivered a stark warning to foreigners not to use “internet issues” to meddle in China’s “internal affairs”.

Cai Mingzhao, a vice minister at the Chinese state council information office, articulated his government’s policy on digital media in a UK-China roundtable held at Reuters’ offices in Canary Wharf today.

The day-long event was attended by a large number of Chinese officials and business people, including Ma Yun, also known as Jack Ma - the founder of e-commerce business Alibaba Group and China’s answer to Bill Gates - as well as Fu Ying, China’s ambassador to the UK.

Mingzhao’s keynote speech mixed encouraging comment on making the “bridge increasingly wide” between China’s internet sector and foreign companies and a careful articulation of the country’s strong stance on content control.

He acknowledged that the internet policies of the Chinese authorities had come in for criticism arguing that the “reasons behind these grievances might be quite complex”.

These misunderstandings have arisen for reasons including a “lack of knowledge” of Chinese government policies by foreign companies or cultural differences, Mingzhao added.

“[We are] willing to draw useful lessons from other countries to improve ways of building and regulating the internet,” he said, before adding a strong word of caution. “Any attempt to use internet issues to interfere in China’s internal affairs is definitely opposed”.

Mingzhao said that news, video games and entertainment had proved popular online in China and that the government at various levels was making efforts to improve the “news releasing mechanism” in the country.

He added that there was no question that the Chinese government recognised the importance of the internet but that development had to go hand-in-hand with traditional cultural values such as harmony, honesty, self-discipline and good will.

Problems including pornography, violence, fraud, spam, hackers, false information and viruses, which are “rampant” online, are “against these concepts and are widely denounced in China”, Mingzhao said.

At least part of the solution, he said, was to look at exchanges of various forms with “professional internet institutes”, naming the Internet Watch Foundation as one example.

– By Mark Sweney

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