16 Jan 2001

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

In 1998, Shanghai computer programmer Lin Hai became the first person to be jailed for Internet dissidence. He was given a two-year sentence for passing on 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to VIP Reference News, a dissident Internet magazine based in the US. He was released before serving his full term.

The limits of governmental powers over the new medium became evident in 1999, however, when members of Falun Gong, a quasi-religious group, usede-mail to plan a 10,000-strong protest outside the leadership compound of Zhongnanhai in central Beijing. The government, shaken both by the movement's technological efficiency and its organisational discipline, has since clamped down on Falun Gong. It has even used the Internet to do so. Hacker attacks on Falun Gong sites in the US were traced back to the Public Security Bureau in Beijing.

Also in 1999, five journalists were arrested for publishing politically sensitive material on the Internet. They included Qi Yanchen, a journalist from Hebei province, who was detained for posting excerpts from his book, The Collapse of China. The same year, city officials in Beijing and Shanghai closed hundreds of unlicensed Internet cafes, and clamped down on online chat rooms and discussion groups dealing with political issues.

In 2000, the government closed a number of sites and arrested several local "web dissidents". In June, Huang Qi was detained for using his site as a forum for human rights debate. The site, www.6-4tianwang.com, remains open: visitors can see the number of days since Mr Huang was detained and take part in an online poll on his arrest. In early August, a Shandong-based site was shut down for posting "counter-revolutionary content" -- the official name for written criticism of the government.

(c) 2001 The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd.