Beijing may lift a ban on social media and major foreign news websites in a bid to provide comfortable living for western investors. Deemed sensitive in China, the sites will be open only in the Shanghai free-trade zone.
"In order to welcome foreign companies to invest and to let
foreigners live and work happily in the free-trade zone, we must
think about how we can make them feel at home. If they can’t get
onto Facebook or read The New York Times, they may naturally
wonder how special the free-trade zone is compared with the rest
of China,” South China Morning Post reported citing an
unnamed official.
Chinese authorities also plan to allow foreign telecommunications
firms to compete against state-owned counterparts in bidding for
licenses to provide internet services within the new economic
zone.
China’s dominant state-owned telecommunications firms - China
Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom - have already been notified of the
government’s decision.
The Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ), covering 28 square kilometers
of the Pudong district, is set to open for business on September,
29. It is hoped to attract foreign investment and business,
increase economic activity and inflows into China, as well as to
boost massive economic reform.
However, unrestricted internet access will not extend to the rest
of Mainland China, where Facebook and Twitter have been banned
since 2009, following mass-scale riots in the western city of
Urumqi in Xinjiang province.
Dozens of major news websites are also inaccessible as China’s
government censors and blocks websites it deems inappropriate or
politically sensitive. Accordingly, in 2012 local authorities
accused the New York Times of disgracing Premier Wen Jiabao's
family after the paper reported that several of Mr. Wen's close
relatives had control over vast, secret assets worth at least
$2.7bn.
Beyond blocking websites Chinese authorities also monitor
internet activity by individuals. Often Google searches and its
email service Gmail are unavailable. Google had introduced a
self-censored search engine in China in 2006, but eventually
withdrew that service in 2010.
Earlier in September China's top court adopted a judicial
interpretation allowing any internet user engaged in
disseminating "false information" or "slanderous
comments" to face up to three years in prison. Those found
guilty of using "false online information" to provoke
"serious public disorder" could face a prison sentence of
10 years, China Daily reported.
More recently, prosecutors are now obliged to open investigations
if "defamatory" comments were "viewed by at least 5,000
internet users or re-tweeted 500 or more times," according
Xinhua.
"Some internet users fabricate rumours about others and create
false information while making use of sensitive social issues,
which has disrupted social order and triggered mass
incidents,” Sun Jungong, a spokesman for the Supreme People's
Court and Procuratorate told Xinhua.
Previously Amnesty International accused Beijing of having
“the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and
cyber-dissidents in the world.”