From Financial Times:
US makes official complaint to China over internet censorship
By Richard Waters and Joseph Menn in San Francisco,,Daniel Dombey in Washington and Kathrin Hille in Beijing
Published: June 22 2009 03:00 | Last updated: June 22 2009 03:00
The US has complained officially to China over its strict new internet censorship rules as tension builds over an issue causing consternation among international technology companies and Chinese internet users.
The development is a rare direct intervention by the US over internet freedom, which has steadily risen in importance as an issue between the two countries in recent years, in part because US technology companies see censorship as a back-door way of keeping them out of the Chinese market.
China has ordered PC makers to load internet filtering software from a Chinese company, Green Dam, on all machines that go on sale in China from July 1. While officially directed at filtering out pornographic material, the order has raised concerns that it could give officials a far more powerful tool for blocking political content.
“We view with concern any attempt to restrict the free flow of information; efforts to filter internet content are incompatible with China’s aspirations to build a modern, information-based economy and society,” said Ian Kelly, a state department spokesman.
The US embassy in Beijing said representatives had met officials at the ministry of industry and information technology and the ministry of commerce on Friday.
According to people familiar with the matter, the US representatives delivered the US objections following a script sent from Washington. The diplomatic move, known as a démarche, is used as a sharp expression of displeasure that often precedes a more involved international dispute.
“We are concerned about Green Dam both in terms of its potential impact on trade and the serious technical issues raised,” said Mr Kelly.
Chinese officials took action against Google late last week, ordering the search company to block access to international sites. Beijing said the action was a punishment for linking to pornographic material, though US internet executives say it was designed to direct public anger against a foreign internet service and distract attention from the Green Dam affair.
PC makers face an additional dilemma over deciding whether to install the software following a claim by Solid Oak, a California software company, that much of the code has been copied directly from its own internet filtering product.
