The Great Firewall of China
By Charles Miller March 14, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Continuing with last week’s column concerning the proposed merger of Microsoft and Yahoo, the editor of Atención asked how that might relate to online censorship and the effects that might have on us here in San Miguel. I failed to immediately see the connection between that corporate merger and the subject of censorship, but then I recalled a recent story in the news and realized it was that to which my editor was referring.

In 1998 the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China (MPS) began the “Golden Shield Project.” This project, also known outside the Middle Kingdom as “The Great Firewall of China” is perhaps the largest censorship program ever undertaken, employing the services of some 30,000 workers to police internet usage; and by 2002 costing a billion US dollars.

Those large numbers of dollars got the attention of some large US corporations including Microsoft, Yahoo, and others. The communist Chinese needed outside technical expertise to make their censorship apparatus work, and they found certain US corporations willing to enter into unholy alliances in the quest for higher profits.

For some people, the most pernicious aspects of this came to light last fall when the late Representative Tom Lantos of California chairing the House Foreign Affairs Committee grilled executives of Yahoo, Google, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft over their choice to do business with China. Yahoo was singled out for special criticism-because of the case of Shi Tao, a 39-year old journalist.

In 2004 the Chinese government had asked Yahoo to help finger a dissident, and Yahoo complied. That action led directly to the imprisonment of Shi Tao whose crime was forwarding pro-democracy information to which the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) objected.

Shi Tao’s mother attended the congressional hearings in Washington, DC where Representative Lantos berated Yahoo’s executives saying “I would urge you to beg the forgiveness of the mother whose son is languishing behind bars thanks to Yahoo's actions.”

It is a controversial issue for companies to profit from censorship including restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Many argue that is wrong for foreign companies to supply the equipment and know-how to enable the Chinese to control their citizen’s access to the internet.

Human rights advocates such as Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders argue that if foreign companies would stop providing totalitarian regimes with technology, their governments might be pushed in the direction of change.

This is the dilemma facing online content providers such as AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Only if they abide by PRC government dictates they can do business in China.

In researching this column, I surfed to several anti-censorship web sites where I found information naming which countries are censoring the internet. Algeria, Belarus, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea are listed among those countries having active and ongoing censorship programs. Even the United States is included on some of the lists for interference with free speech; mostly regulating certain types of pornography.

Interestingly enough the one country I did not find on anybody’s list was this republic. Viva Mexico!

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.