China announces chilling Internet restrictions

Desperate to prevent on growing online revolution from tearing down the walls

of communist control over a billion-and-a-half people, China’s government

announced a major crackdown on Internet use. The new guidelines make it highly

risky for anyone to publish information, even in chat room, that could be

considered out of line with the country’s official communist ideology.

In the process, China all but banned the use of foreign encryption products

by demanding that publishers provide them with their source code. Under the new

Internet guidelines announced by the States Secrecy Bureau, which enforces the

country’s "secrets laws," all companies and individuals to register

themselves, by February 1, if they make use of any type of encryption software.

As part of the registration, companies must list the publisher, the serial

number and the names of the employees authorized to use encryption software.

The new rules also require anyone to seek official approval before

transmitting any information over the Internet that was not previously made

public. The new ruling would require companies such as Netscape, which use

encryption in part of the navigator browser, to submit their source code,

something that is not likely to happen. In effect, companies who refuse to abide

by the rules will be forced out of the Chinese market and their customers will

be forced to use a Chinese encryption program to which government authorities

have decryption access Industry analysts, industry and government officials said

they are alarmed by the new regulations.

"This can potentially compromise the trade secrets of many companies,''

said Jay Hu of the United States Information Technology Office, an industry

group. The crack clearly appears aimed at limiting the ability by members of the

now-banned Falun Gong spiritual movement to use e-mail and the Internet to set

up protest meetings and events. Using advanced Western encryption technology,

thousands of Chinese have been able to freely exchange ideas and information and

organizing protests, as government agencies are unable to crack the advanced

Western encryption codes.

There are an estimated nine million Internet users in China, up from less

than five million six months ago. Giving such a large and rapidly growing group

of educated citizens access to a tool for dissemminating anti-government

information, has become a huge threat to the stability of the communist regime.

In addition, the Chinese government is reacting to the wave of new Chinese Web

sites posting all sorts of information that would not have been made public by

state-controlled media. Some Web sites have carried reports on tests of a new

submarine-launched missile and a sprawling corruption scandal that has

threatened to ensnare a senior party leader. Already China maintains a special

police force to monitor the Internet and, in criminal trials, has accused

political dissidents and leaders of Falun Gong of disseminating anti-government

views and state secrets on the Web.