Why censorship in china

The ominous warning to Browder comes amid a quickening pattern of Chinese influence over free speech in the West. After coming under pressure from rights groups, LinkedIn announced it would close down its service on the mainland due to concerns over free expression, offering Chinese users a stripped-down version of the networking site without social media features.

In September, the Lithuanian government advised its officials to stop using Chinese-manufactured phones after discovering they were pre-programmed to censor words or phrases considered objectionable by Beijing. That same week it was revealed that community newspapers in Australia serving Chinese speakers were printing censored stories. News articles sent to China for verbatim translation were being quietly scrubbed of criticism of Beijing.

That has put a premium on its international reputation. Increasingly, therefore, the CCP sees its continued reign as dependent not only on its long-standing practice of severely restricting speech inside China but also on dictating global narratives about China. Its rulers also fear that critiques that germinate abroad could seep through cracks in the Great Firewall and foster domestic instability.

The CCP sees its continued reign as dependent not only on its long-standing practice of severely restricting speech inside China but also on dictating global narratives about China.

China is now flexing its powers to impose censorship, of hard and soft varieties, beyond its own borders. Directors and actors associated with such films as Seven Years in Tibet that depict China unfavorably have been frozen out professionally and, in some cases, have resorted to obsequious apologies to revive their careers.

By contrast, action films with Chinese heroes and plotlines that flatter Beijing have won privileged slots for broad theatrical release, making as much as hundreds of millions of dollars on the mainland.

The result is an acquiescent, anticipatory, even subconscious form of self-censorship whereby U. There are other documented instances of publishers in Australia , England , and Germany coming under direct pressure from the CCP or engaging in anticipatory self-censorship to appease Beijing.

Journalists have seen this up close as well. That left just several dozen American reporters inside China, a group that has been subject to harassment, visa denials, surveillance, and severe access restrictions.

Executives feared the exposes could compromise their lucrative mainland financial terminal business. China scholars in the West face knotty dilemmas over whether to withhold criticism or risk forfeiting visa access necessary to carry out their work. Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes on Western campuses have been widely accused of stifling open inquiry on China-related subjects.

Chinese students studying in Australia report being under direct surveillance as well as dealing with informal systems whereby peers intimidate and harass those who deviate from a pro-Beijing line. Although many U. As economic pressures to engage with China grow, companies such as Facebook and Google have explored plans to open new, censored social media and internet services on the mainland.

Apple has opted to compromise app services, data privacy, and user protection measures to sustain access to Chinese markets. Even companies that do not offer their services within China may accept Chinese advertising revenue, including from government sources. Earlier this month, Twitter was accused of suspending accounts belonging to a Canadian publisher who had put out books critical of the CCP. Mounting a response to these incursions is not easy.

It implicates human rights, trade, education, intelligence, media freedom, national security, and more. Many of the encroachments, moreover, implicate private institutions and corporations on sensitive questions of content, viewpoint, and ideology, areas where governments should—and legally must—hesitate to tread.

Compounding the problem are the unmistakable dangers of overreaction. Ham-handed approaches could feed Red Scare-style paranoia, xenophobia toward Chinese people, and bigotry toward individuals of Asian descent.

Broad clampdowns could chill people-to-people relations at a time when human and cultural ties represent a potential counterweight to geopolitical tensions. They must not be grounds to ignore the problem—or acquiesce to it. The Biden administration in the United States and other Western governments should mobilize a three-pronged approach to meeting these challenges.

Economic officials should analyze how trade rules and regimens can be invoked to challenge certain Chinese censorship practices as nontariff barriers to free trade. Standards and guidelines should be developed to spell out when the normal give-and-take among business partners, donors and grantees, vendors, and regulators crosses over into government coerciveness.

Officials from agencies responsible for telecommunications, scientific research, technology, higher education, and other sectors should coordinate to develop measured policies that can mitigate risk without inflaming tensions or hobbling the ability of Western institutions and corporations to compete. She was formerly deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations at the U. State Department. Twitter: SuzanneNossel. Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription.

Perhaps the most devastating form of censorship is physical. Authorities have silenced numerous leading writers, rights lawyers and activists who served as the conscience of the nation: aforementioned Ai Weiwei is in exile, Xu Zhiyong has been forcibly disappeared , and Liu Xiaobo died three years ago in state custody.

In July , authorities rounded up and interrogated without counsel about rights lawyers, legal assistants, and activists across the country, many of whom were subjected to torture and other ill treatment and a few are still in prison today. Police jailed some Twitter users while forcing others to close their accounts. When so few have alternative sources of information, government propaganda becomes more believable: The coronavirus was brought to China by the U.

Inside China, people are living in an information bubble that the government is getting better at controlling. In some cases, this is almost leading to a generational split. In my cohort—those who experienced a relatively free internet as young people—many strongly resent the Great Firewall.

Among people who started college after Xi took power, however, there is a strong impulse to defend it. Having grown up never hearing of or using international platforms such as Twitter and Google, they believe the Firewall has protected them from false information and the country from social instability.

But while the U. The way the state media depicts the U. Some examples of this new nationalism are absurd but largely harmless, like a storm of criticism that erupted around a famed infectious disease doctor for suggesting that Chinese children should have protein-rich eggs and milk for breakfast, rather than rice porridge. But some nationalistic fervor has the potential for real-world harm.

Recently, there have been renewed calls for the Chinese government to seize the opportunity created by the pandemic to take Taiwan by force. Videos and photos have also emerged of people, including children , warning or wishing for the deaths of Americans.

Of course, not all youth are strident nationalists. While rising nationalism in China is a reality and policymakers should take it seriously, they should also keep in mind that many in and from China live in silent fear, struggling with guilt for not speaking up.

At minimum, countries around the world should keep their universities, institutions and open societies supportive of and welcoming to those who want to learn and debate. Governments and institutions should also invest in overseas independent Chinese-language media—many young people inside the Great Firewall quietly find ways to jump over the wall to look for information—and technological tools that can be used to circumvent and even dismantle censorship.

Finally, they need to keep supporting journalists, writers and activists inside the country—the real agents of change. Get updates on human rights issues from around the globe. Join our movement today. Help us continue to fight human rights abuses. Please give now to support our work. Human Rights Watch. Donate Now. Take Action. Join Us. Give Now. Click to expand Image. Your tax deductible gift can help stop human rights violations and save lives around the world.

Topic Technology and Rights. More Reading. August 14, Commentary. July 22, Commentary. June 16, Report. September 9, Report.