China cracks down on Web and expats

And the crosscurrents of change within China make it hard to read how much it's liberalizing and how much internal debate there is over this kind of change. As a Beijing-based diplomat put it after the Chen and Hao cases in Australia this week shed light on the nature of China's extensive efforts to monitor religious and media activity: "Only when someone seeks asylum do we get a glimpse into what is going on; usually China conducts a one-way communication. We can't see it."

Chen was one of some 40 diplomats in the Chinese mission in Sydney. He participated in operations, he says, to monitor Chinese living in Australia who held views different from Beijing on Taiwan, Tibet, and the Falun Gong spiritual movement. "My spirit is severely distressed for my sin of working for the unjustified authority in somewhat evil ways," Chen wrote in a lengthy letter given to Australian authorities.

Mr. Hao reiterated Chen's claims, saying that the Chinese government has sent out a network of spies to overseas countries, including the United States.

Chinese Foreign Ministry officials strenuously denied that the country operates a spy network in Australia. Consular officials in Australia called Chen's assertions "fabricated stories which are purely fictitious," but stated he could return home without recrimination. Few Australian experts felt Chen would not be punished in China. Chen told Australian TV he never wished to return home.

Efforts in China to control speech and news on the Internet are as old as the technology. In recent years, the state has introduced sophisticated software that can track and block dissent. In the weeks afterChina's former premier, Zhao Ziyang, died in January, almost all references to him in cyberspace were deleted. In April, the government disabled college Internet message boards - often used by students and alumni to speak freely and to communicate with Chinese living overseas. This week's declaration requiring Internet registry to operate on the Web will also give officials another tool for control.

"Those who continue to publish under their real names on sites hosted in China will either have to avoid political subjects or just relay the Communist Party's propaganda," stated the journalists' watch group Reporters Without Borders. "This decision will enable those in power to control online news more effectively."

Few Chinese will discuss sensitive subjects using their own names. Discussions that advocate Western-style democracy; criticisms of the Communist Party; satire about leaders; and disagreements with official positions on the unification of China and Taiwan, the Dalai Lama, the Falun Gong spiritual sect, or calls for an official reappraisal of events like the Tiananmen massacre - to name but a few - are officially considered impermissible public speech.

Diplomatic and other sources in Beijing state that the new controls are both an effort to combat instability in the society at large, and to manage internal power struggles as well. A senior diplomat in Beijing pointed out this week that since China has tens of thousands of strikes and protests a year, it was not surprising that President Hu Jintao was concerned about instability.

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