This everybody knows: the Chinese government has always been restraining the freedom of the Chinese inside the country – from restraining the freedom in the areas of people’s thinking and expression of opinions in the old days, to using the Internet nowadays. They restrain people’s freedom to use the Internet. They did a lot blockage in this aspect.
Despite the situation, this is a technical issue: they have blockage, we would have counter-blockage. Then we need help from the big companies overseas, including bills passed by the Congress of the United States. All this is for a formation of Internet freedom. This situation, to break the blockage of the Chinese Communist Party, will provide significant promotion [of internet freedom].
I believe it would be very difficult for the Chinese government to completely block the network. This is hard to do. Network technology can be used and shared by people.
This really is because of the network problem. Because of the text messages of cell phones or network comments, the Chinese government has arrested many people. Indeed, this is a two-edged sword. Now it is possible to monitor many people all at the same time.
But at the same time there is a brighter side, which is now the character of group events. They can call attention from several hundred or thousands of people immediately for the activities of defending human rights in China, through the network, like text messages, cell phones, and network platform. For example, like the Liu Xianbin [Chinese human rights activist and organizer for the China Democracy Party] incident some time ago received attention from many groups.
A short while back, the verdict of the Internet user of Fujian province, there will be more people who go there. If without the Internet, this kind of social phenomenon would be hard to imagine, because this is something new. It will generate some new problems to the social reform. It requires the people to face it. If it is utilized well, then on the government side there is a cost issue. Above all, the Communist Party is facing a huge population: 13 billion Chinese, plus people overseas.
If it wants to completely block it one by one, and to suppress it one by one, I don’t think it can possibly do it – it’s hard to do it. Therefore , the first thing is to have a spirit of sacrifice; the second is not to be afraid. Don’t be frightened by the Chinese Communist Party, like Tan Zuoren [Chinese former editor of Literati magazine and vocal critic of the government], like Liu Xianbin, like Huang Qi [Chinese webmaster and human rights activist], and Shi Tao [Chinese journalist and writer]. All of these people were put in jail because of the Internet. Above all, the number is still quite minimal. If we have more people participate, perhaps, I believe the government will realize its method will no longer be effective.
Fang Zheng was a college student in Beijing in 1989 when he participated in the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. As the military moved to suppress the demonstrations on June 4, 1989, he was run over by a tank and both of his legs were crushed and had to be amputated.
Fang refused to sign a government-written statement that he had lost his legs in an ordinary road accident. He was denied a college degree. Once a champion runner, he now devoted himself to wheelchair athletics, breaking two Asian records at the 1992 All-China Disabled Athletic Games. However, the government refused to allow him to participate in international competitions or in further competition within China.
Fang spoke frequently to international news media about the human rights situation, and particularly about the government’s refusal to acknowledge what it had done at Tiananmen Square. He was repeatedly denied the right to travel overseas, but he was finally allowed to leave China in 2008 amid widespread interest in his case among international news media covering the Beijing Olympics.
The People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, after a decades-long civil war between communist and nationalist forces. The communist victory drove the nationalist government to the island of Taiwan. While tensions have eased in recent years, both the nationalist and communist forces still claim to rule all of China. China ranks as the world’s third largest country by area, and the largest by population, with over 1.3 billion people.
Since 1949, China has been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. Revolutionary leader Mao Zedong led the country until his death in 1976. Mao’s era was marked by dramatic swings in policy, massive crackdowns on perceived opponents of the regime, and harsh repression. Since 1976, the Chinese government has broken with Marxist economic orthodoxy by instituting limited market-based reforms, but the party has retained its monopoly on political power.
Freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and religion are severely restricted, and the people of China are denied the right to change their government. The courts are controlled by the Communist Party and do not provide due process of law. Government control extends into every aspect of people’s lives, most notably in the one-child policy in which unauthorized pregnancies often result in forced abortion and sterilization. While technology has spread quickly in recent years, Freedom House ranks China as one of the three most repressive governments in the world in terms of Internet freedom.
While the rapid expansion of the private sector has dramatically changed the Chinese economy, fundamental principles of free market systems are lacking, including property rights and independent labor unions. Official corruption remains a major obstacle to developing a fully free economy.
In 1989, 100,000 people gathered in a peaceful demonstration in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to protest human rights violations and demand democratic reforms. The protest lasted several weeks and inspired similar nonviolent demonstrations in other cities throughout China. On June 4, 1989, the People’s Liberation Army converged on the area with troops, tanks, and other advanced military weapons. Estimates of the death toll ranged from several hundred to several thousand. The army used similar tactics to suppress demonstrations in other cities and subsequently rounded up and imprisoned many thousands of protestors. The government vigorously defended these actions and instituted a campaign to purge those who had sympathized with protestors from the party and the government.
Although the Tiananmen Square massacre put an end to hopes for a speedy transition to democracy, courageous Chinese citizens have continued to risk imprisonment and worse to demand freedom. These human rights activists have included students, workers, lawyers, artists, and writers; Tibetan Buddhists and Uyghur Muslims who demand respect for their cultures, traditions, and religious practices; members of the spiritual discipline known as Falun Gong; Catholics who insist that their church is headed by the Pope rather than by government-appointed religious officials; and members of the “house church” movement, representing millions of Protestant Christians who are forced to worship in secret because their churches are not authorized by the government. China’s many prisoners of conscience include members of each of these groups.
In 2010, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to imprisoned Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo. His wife was arrested in order to prevent her from attending the award ceremony, and the government employed a range of coercive techniques to prevent other human rights activists from attending. China’s leading human rights lawyer, Gao Zhisheng, disappeared in early 2009 and is presumed to be in government custody.
The most recent Freedom in the World report from Freedom House gave China scores of 6 for civil liberties and 7 for political rights, where 1 is the highest and 7 the lowest possible score. Freedom House categorizes China as a “Not Free” country.
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