China cracks down on Web and expats

A year-long campaign by the Hu Jintao government to silence unofficial voices in China and to assert control over independent expression continues with an order this week for all Chinese websites and bloggers to register their real names with authorities, or be closed by June 30.

Tens of thousands of Chinese use cyberspace to publish views on subjects ranging from politics to relationships, and have been able to avoid official censure by writing anonymously. But now Internet activity will be monitored in real time by Information Ministry computers. Sites and users not registered may be arrested.

Official efforts to police cyberspace here comes amid a host of new measures and events that underscore a broad tightening of controls by the central government. A senior Chinese diplomat posted to Australia is seeking asylum in a hotly debated espionage case now underway in Sydney. Chen Yonglin, the diplomat, says the pressures and demands placed on him by authorities to monitor Chinese living abroad - especially members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement - had become "intolerable." Mr. Chen asserts that "about 1,000" Chinese residing in Australia are spying. In a highly unusual twist on June 8, Hao Fengjun, a former Chinese Consulate security official now also seeking asylum in Australia, verified Chen's claims.

Last fall, Propaganda Ministry officials released circulars to news organizations directing them to cease quoting unapproved sources or the so-called "public intellectuals" who often acted as a Greek chorus advocating change. Two weeks ago, Beijing began requiring Chinese journalists to obtain a license showing they had taken a week-long ideological course, and to show the license when covering official events. Moreover, a chill has settled over parts of the academic community here.

According to sources in Beijing, two prominent scholars with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Lu Jianhu and Chen Hui, continue to be held incommunicado - possibly in connection with the efforts by Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong to obtain a manuscript of conversations with former premier Zhao Ziyang, a figure beloved by many Chinese. (The late Mr. Zhao, put under house arrest shortly after the 1989 Tiananmen episode, is thought to have criticized Chinese leaders for their handling of the pro-democracy movement.) Mr. Ching was arrested on April 22. But his case came to light only last week as authorities prepared to charge him with espionage.

The range of official controls asserted by the Hu Jintao government are beginning to challenge a set of suppositions about China's direction. By the mid-1990s, as the bloodshed and tragedy of Tiananmen faded from view, China became a prized destination for US and European corporations seeking cheaper manufacturing labor. Experts said that China's economic opening to the world, particularly the West, would liberalize China. The Internet, rock music, youth culture, and the legal mechanisms associated with World Trade Organization, for example, would make China more transparent and open. In some ways it has.

But until now, much of the discourse about China's rise in the world has been from the standpoint of other great powers. Jeffrey Garten, dean of the Yale School of Management argues for example that, "Never before has the rise of a nation occurred while it was so intertwined economically with those countries that might wish to slow it down."

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