By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
BEIJING, China – As thousands of anti-government demonstrators poured onto Cairo’s streets to demand freedom in the past couple of days, China’s reaction was quick and simple: censor it.
Many state-controlled internet pages and news articles, including sina.com and sohu.com censored the word “Egypt.” When the word was typed in a search engine, it prompted a following response: “According to the laws in force, the results of your search cannot be given.” User comments regarding Egypt were also deleted from Internet forums.
The recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia are giving pause to many authoritarian regimes around the world and China is no exception. The ruling Communist Party is wary of issues of political reform, demands for democracy and disturbances to public order, even if all these events are taking place abroad. That is why Beijing is notorious for closely monitoring the 450 million Chinese Internet users to prevent organized dissent and democratic movement as well as mention of the issue of human rights.
“Of course, the government doesn’t want to see more comments on (the protests), because stability is what they want,” said Zhan Jian, a professor with the Media Department at the China Youth University for Political Sciences.
Censoring the Internet is not the only approach, however. Beijing is also trying to get out ahead of the discussion, framing the Egyptian protests in a few editorials and articles as a chaotic affair that embodies the pitfalls of trying to plant democracy in countries that are not quite ready for it — a line China’s leaders have long held.
An editorial in the Global Times, a state-run newspaper, said such uprisings will not bring true “democracy”, as defined by Westerners.
“As a general concept, democracy has been accepted by most people. But when it comes to political systems, the Western model is only one of a few options. It takes time and effort to apply democracy to different countries, and to do so without the turmoil of revolution,” the paper said Sunday.
Two days later, the same publication took a hit against the United States for supporting authoritarian governments in pursuit of its interests in the Middle East, saying that “contradicts their so-called democratic politics.”
China’s message to its own people is clear, said Jeremy Goldkorn, who runs Danwei.org, a website that tracks the media and Internet in China.
“The Chinese government’s take is that chaos is harmful for a developing country: ‘Look what happens when people go in the streets,'” he said. “The Global Times frames everything as ‘This is the danger of Western-style democracy.'”
For more information, please see:
AFT – China micro-blogging sites censor ‘Egypt’ – 29 January 2011
Forbes – China restricts reports on Egypt protests – 2 February 2011
IHT – Wary of Egypt Unrest, China Censors Web – 31 January 2011
