Chinese Ministry of Information Internet Registration Laws

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Article source: http://worldthinktank.net/. Used with author's permission.

China maybe stopping some of the SPAM coming into the United States by getting tough on Internet users. Currently about 30 percent of all SPAM comes from China. But before you get all happy and break out the champagne you must realize that what they are doing has nothing to do with helping us. The Chinese government is afraid for freedom of the press, because it is undermining the their political power. They are particularly upset with bloggers there.

The Chinese government of course is claiming they are trying to cut down on unhealthy or fraudulent activities. But their idea of unhealthy is political dissidence and anti-government publishing. The deadline posed was June first and if you were not registered by then, you were ordered to shut down. So far over 75% of the websites have registered and many have been shut down. One reporter called it the "Great Firewall of China" which is pretty hilarious indeed.

Actually if the Chinese government thinks that they have a problem now with only 135 million Internet users, yet a population of 1.32 Billion people, just wait. Perhaps the Internet will in fact bring democracy to the world; Bill Gates was right. But it will be awhile until the other 90% of the Chinese population gets online. The growth in Internet use is huge and growing, but there is a lot more growth where that came from. The Chinese Government likens the problem to a virus of Bird Flu or the AIDS crisis there. They want censorship but also want the trade and know they must have the Internet to have the cash infusions needed to tax businesses and build up their military for the future war with the United States and World War III.

So far it is estimated that there are some 32,000 Internet police in China, who cannot keep up, but frequently find and arrest people who opening speak online against the government. They have so far blocked search engine sites, closed Internet Cafes and blocked emails. The Chinese government since it maintains the routers in Shanghai and Beijing can re-route website traffic to alternate sites. This also affects web traffic in other nearby countries like North Korea and Vietnam. Does anyone else have a problem with this or is it just me?

China will over take the number of Internet users in the United States by the end of 2005 and we can never catch them as we ain't got enough folks living here. Heck we do not even have that many bullets? So what happens to you if you piss off the Chinese Government online? Oh the usual; Torture, beatings, detention, prison, execution, etc.. A recent case a man got 11 years in prison for down loading articles from a Chinese democracy website?

If we in the United States are going to have free trade, well let's um-huh have some "Free-Dumb" too? We and the world should demand it. If not we are supporting tyranny on one end of the stick and then sticking it to another easier target nation. It is time for the world to get on the same page and if we allow this to go on, who are we kidding. America is nothing more than a paper tiger and a bunch of hypocrites; unless we call an ace an ace and a spade a spade. That is what the Chinese Government is calling us these days; no one seems to be filtering out that noise? One good thing about this is with less information flowing they are stifling their own innovation and progress. This along with artificial currency manipulation to lessen the effect of inflation and keep their currency low for trade is eventually going to run into a big fat Wall of China, but this wall will be made of cards so then a paper tiger is not all that bad, now is it? Think on this, I'll get back to you soon.

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