House Hearing Finds Continued Internet Monitoring in China

By: Foster Klug, Associated Press Writer (AP) A State Department official told lawmakers Wednesday that China's efforts to manipulate the Internet have increased in the last year, "sending a chilling message to Internet users."

James Keith, the State Department's senior adviser on East Asia, testified at a House International Relations subcommittee hearing at which four U.S. technology companies were to testify on what lawmakers have said are business practices that help China crush internal dissent.

China's "effort to regulate the political and religious content of the Internet is counter to our interest, to international standards and, we argue, to China's own long-term modernization goals," Keith said in prepared testimony.

Representatives from Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., and Google Inc. were expected to face hard questions at the hearing from lawmakers from both political parties.

Rep. Chris Smith said the companies are "enabling dictatorship" by helping China manipulate the Internet.

"Cooperation with tyranny should not be embraced for the sake of profits," says Smith, the Republican chairman of the House subcommittee on global human rights.

U.S. tech companies eyeing China face a dilemma, analysts say: While keen to tap a market that could soon eclipse America's, they must also worry about the perception they're helping China harass dissidents.

"They are in an extremely dicey position," said John Palfrey, a Harvard Law School professor who studies the Internet.

The potential for profit is great. China is estimated to have more than 100 million Internet users.

But to do business, U.S. companies must satisfy a government that fiercely polices Internet content. Filters block objectionable foreign Web sites; regulations ban what the Chinese consider subversive and pornographic content and require service providers to enforce censorship.

A new survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists calls China's efforts to control its media "unique in the world's history.

"Never have so many lines of communication in the hands of so many people been met with such obsessive resistance from a central authority."

China says its aims are benign _ to protect its citizens, and especially children, from "the immoral and harmful content" of the Internet.

Critics say the limits China imposes go further and are aided by U.S. companies. They point to a new Google search engine that censors some results. Yahoo, they say, helped police identify and convict a journalist who had criticized human rights abuses.

U.S. businesses that have adopted Chinese Internet standards say they must obey local laws. They lack the leverage, they say, to influence world governments.

Lawmakers and observers have a harsher view.

Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos said Tuesday that "the hugely successful businesses that come before Congress tomorrow will have to account for their complicity in China's culture of repression, and to begin to make amends."

Robert Dietz, who monitors Asia for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said other repressive regimes are watching closely how the U.S. Internet companies act in China. What happens with China's Internet, he said, probably will serve as a model elsewhere.

"We sense that people are standing back, watching the technology evolve, watching the attitude evolve, seeing how far countries can go in pushing their ... Internet censorship," he said. "We don't think this will end in China."