Access to the Internet has grown rapidly in China in recent years, and in 2008 China surpassed the United States to become the country with the largest population of Internet users in the world. With this expanded access came the hope that the Chinese people might finally have a public forum in which to freely express themselves without fear of retribution from authorities. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Although the Chinese regime is unable to control content on the Internet to the degree it can in print and broadcast media, government authorities have developed a remarkably effective, technically sophisticated infrastructure to police the Internet by monitoring the online activities of Chinese citizens, filtering and blocking content critical of the regime, shutting down “harmful” sites inside of China, and manipulating news coverage through censorship and propaganda. Although some restrictions were temporarily eased in the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the authorities have since retightened their grip; the Internet remains highly censored and cyber-dissidents remain closely monitored.

Photo Caption on the right: A cartoon mascot of the Internet Surveillance Division of the Public Security Bureau in Shenzhen, China, which appears on websites in Shenzhen to remind Internet users that they are being monitored.

The Great Firewall of China

China’s central government employs a combination of tactics to monitor and censor content on the Internet. The IP addresses of many websites, such as those of human rights or Tibetan independence sites, are blocked, meaning access to these sites is consistently denied. Additionally, the government maintains a more fluid list of keywords, constantly updated to reflect current events, that could potentially relate to content of which it does not approve. If a user enters any of these words into a search engine or tries to directly access a site that contains such words, they are redirected or receive an error message. For example, a search for “Charter 08” in China yields few, if any, relevant results to the bold document issued by more than 300 Chinese citizens in 2008 calling for the end of one-party rule. The monitoring of the content of websites, as well as the tracking of users who attempt to access “harmful” websites, is carried out by Internet police employed by the central government. There are conflicting reports on the size of this online police force, but most estimates range from 30,000 – 50,000, though some studies put the figure much higher.

Internet police are only part of the government’s strategy, however. Reports have emerged of government officials paying Internet commentators to help shift negative public opinion by scanning certain online bulletin board systems and countering critical or negative threads with posts in support of the Party. Known in Chinese as “Wu Mao Dang,” or “50 Cent Party,” for the fee they typically collect with each positive post (about $0.07), such groups have proven to be effective in overwhelming initially negative commentary on government policies. This method is particularly popular with local governments, who cannot afford to pay their own full-time Internet police force.In addition to policing the Internet from the top, Chinese authorities have also been very successful in encouraging self-censorship by website hosts and individual Internet users. The threat of having their website shut down is enough to convince many private servers and discussion board hosts to delete anti-Party or anti-government content from their sites, or to at least tone down their criticisms. The arrests of cyber-dissidents, including He Weihua, Chen Shuqing, Hu Jia and Liu Xiaobo, to name only a few of those arrested for their online writings, naturally instills fear in all Internet users, resulting in a widespread chilling effect at the individual level. This fear is compounded by the fact that Internet cafes typically require all users to sign in with their names and identity card numbers, and some even take photographs of customers as well.

The Golden Shield Program

The so-called Great Firewall of China is actually just one piece of the Chinese government's grand security program known as "Golden Shield."This program aims to give the State the ability to conduct surveillance of the Chinese people on an Orwellian scale—monitoring their online activities via their emails and IP addresses, monitoring their phone conversations with advanced speech recognition technology, and monitoring their movements through a vast network of video cameras equipped with face-recognition software. The information gathered would then be stored in a massive database that also contains every citizen’s fingerprints and other biometric data, credit records, and other personal information. Ultimately, Chinese authorities envision using "Smartcard" technology to scan an individual's State-issued identity card and instantly access all of the information the government has collected on him or her. Such a capability would give the Chinese government an unprecedented level of control over its citizens and would be disastrous for the human rights of the Chinese people. Many American companies, most notably Cisco, have sold technology to the Chinese government that has helped to make the Golden Shield possible.

What LRF Does

LRF has been very active in advocating for greater online freedom, participating in Congressional hearings and submitting comments to the Department of Commerce that detail how certain technologies being exported to China are being used by authorities to restrict the freedoms of the Chinese people.

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• The text of the Joint Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations and the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, of the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives on February 15, 2006 regarding the Internet in China as a tool of supression is available in digital format for download or by request.
• The text of the Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives on November 6, 2007 regarding Yahoo! Inc.'s Provision of False Information to Congress is available in digital format for download or by request.
• As part of our larger effort to monitor the arrests of dissidents in China and advocate on their behalf, LRF has paid particular attention to those arrested for works published on the Internet. For example, after the arrest of Liu Xiaobo for his role in Charter 08, an online letter signed by over 300 prominent academics and activists in China calling for political reform, LRF organized and circulated a petition calling for his release.
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• Yahoo! Human Rights Fund
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• On January 1, 2008, Yahoo! named the Laogai Research Foundation administrator of the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund. The Fund provides humanitarian and legal assistance to persons in the People’s Republic of China who have been imprisoned or persecuted for expressing their views on the Internet. A portion of the Fund also supports the educational work of LRF in raising awareness of human rights abuses in China. LRF serves as the steward of this fund, and an advisory board has been created to monitor the disbursement of funds and ensure transparency in the management of the Fund.
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• Persons who have been imprisoned because of Internet censorship and their family members may apply for support from the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund. Applicants should send their CV, a short biography, the reason for the application, and a short introduction to the case. The amount available for each person will depend on his or her specific needs and other circumstances. Application materials may be emailed to HRFund@laogai.org, or mailed to
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• • Yahoo! Human Rights Fund
  • Laogai Research Foundation
  • 1109 M Street NW
  • Washington, DC 20005-4306.