He drew a rough map of his hometown from memory, before posting it on “Bring Lost Babies Home”, a Chinese website devoted to locating missing children through the help of volunteers.

Soon afterwards, a volunteer wrote back with valuable information – a couple from a small town in Sichuan’s Guangan city had lost a son 23 years ago. The time matched Luo’s abduction perfectly.

Luo searched for pictures of the Sichuan town and found they looked familiar to him. To confirm his suspicions, he turned to the satellite version Google Maps. The minute he zoomed in on an area called “Yaojiaba” near the Sichuan town, Luo recognised the two bridges.

“That’s it! That’s my home,” shouted Luo, in tears.

[Source]

This case bears a striking resemblance to a similar case of an Indian orphan who used Google Maps to find his hometown after being adopted by an Australian family. See also previous CDT coverage of child trafficking in China.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: child trafficking, Fujian, Google, human trafficking, Sichuan
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“Our country’s mobile operating system research and development is too dependent on Android,” the paper, posted online on Friday but carried by local media on Tuesday, said.

“While the Android system is open source, the core technology and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google.”

[…] Analysts said the white paper, which lauded Chinese companies such as Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group and Huawei Technologies for creating their own systems, could be a signal to the industry that regulations against Android are on the horizon.

“In China, regulators regulate regularly especially where they can position the regulations as helping out domestic companies,” Duncan Clark, chairman of technology consultancy BDA, said in an email to Reuters.

At The Wall Street Journal, Paul Mozur examined the complaints’ possible roots:

The stronger language used in the most recent report could indicate that the research institute believes that Google had violated one of the conditions laid out by China’s Ministry of Commerce when it approved Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. in May. As part of the approval, the ministry said Google couldn’t use its Android operating system to discriminate against manufacturers.

[…] In September Google forced the delay of a planned release of an Acer Inc. 2353.TW +4.06% smartphone that was set to run Aliyun, an operating system developed by Alibaba. Google said the operating system was a “non-compatible” version of Android, meaning that Alibaba allegedly created its operating system by taking Google’s Android software and making changes to it.

[…] Alibaba denied Google’s claims. “Aliyun OS is not a part of the Android ecosystem so of course Aliyun OS is not and does not have to be compatible with Android,” it said in a statement.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: alibaba, Google, Google Android, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, mobile phones, mobile technology, Motorola, smartphone, software
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The preservation of Tibetan place names is particularly politically charged. References to locations in Sichuan or Qinghai rather than in Kham or Amdo are often fiercely contested, and the erosion of Tibetan toponyms has also taken place at a lower level. In one pre-Communist example, the town of Dartsedo (or Dajianlu 打箭炉, in the original Chinese rendering based on the Tibetan) was renamed Kangding 康定 in the early twentieth century. Adding insult to injury, this newer label is widely believed to commemorate the “pacification” or conquest of Kham.

A new project by the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe, Students for a Free Tibet and the Tibetan Youth Congress aims to secure the future of Tibetan place names by adding them to Google Maps:

Under the Chinese occupation many Tibetan towns and cultural landmarks not only were destroyed but also renamed with new Chinese names.

To stop this ongoing attempt to systematically wipe out the Tibetan identity, language and tradition, we are starting a worldwide petition asking Google to put Tibet’s heritage back on the map – by officially adding the traditional Tibetan names written in the Tibetan alphabet.

So from February 13th 2013, exactly 100 years after Tibet’s declaration of independence, we are collecting all the information about Tibetan landmarks on this map.

Another valuable resource on Tibetan place names is the Places Portal at the Tibetan & Himalayan Library (via High Peaks Pure Earth‘s Dechen Pemba).

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google, maps, qinghai, Sichuan, Tibetan culture, Tibetan language
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China, Schmidt and Cohen write, is “the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information” as well as “the most sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies. In a world that is becoming increasingly digital, the willingness of China’s government and state companies to use cyber crime gives the country an economic and political edge, they say.

[…] But for all the advantages China gains from its approach to the Internet, Schmidt and Cohen still seem to think its hollow political center is unsustainable. “This mix of active citizens armed with technological devices and tight government control is exceptionally volatile,” they write, warning this could lead to “widespread instability.”

In the longer run, China will see “some kind of revolution in the coming decades,” they write.

In a separate post, Gara takes a broader overview of the book’s contents, including real-name registration, “automated and machine-precise” haircuts, and the view that “we’re already living in an age of state-led cyber war, even if most of us aren’t aware of it.” See also Schmidt’s daughter Sophie’s account of their recent trip to North Korea.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: books, cyberutopianism, cyberwar, Eric Schmidt, Google, hacking, real name registration, revolution
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Duncan Clark, chairman of market research company BDA China Ltd, said that Schmidt’s visit to China was incidental, after his visit to the DPRK.

However, Clark added that “both Google China’s R&D presence in Beijing and its massive influence on the smartphone market through Android still give it a lot of heft here” despite the fact that local rival Baidu Inc has won the upper hand in recent times. Google’s Android is the world’s most widely used smartphone operating system.

…

Faced with a declining market share in China, Google is pushing into the mobile sector,trying to generate revenues from its mobile advertising products, which enable ads tobe shown on mobile applications, mobile search results and online videos.

John Liu, corporate vice-president of Google China, said earlier the mobile ad business is the company’s fastest-growing business in the country.

Meanwhile, the cat-and-mouse game with Chinese authorities over web freedoms in China continues. Google recently cancelled a search filter notification feature which tipped off users to banned or risky keywords, prompting some to claim that the Internet giant has given up the fight against Chinese government censorship. While activist groups such as GreatFire.org have expressed disappointment with Google, The Economist tries to put the move in perspective:

Fair enough, but a question comes to mind. Why should Google be buckling under now? Some see crassly commercial motives, supposing that the firm has stopped crying foul on censorship in order to woo back the Chinese government on behalf of its business interests. Such folk observe that Google has recently announced a tie up with Qihoo 360 Technology, a Chinese firm that puts out popular antivirus software as well as the country’s leading web browser.

Qihoo is determined to take on Baidu, which has consolidated its grip on China’s search market after Google’s departure (it is estimated to command a share of greater than 70%). A tie-up with Google would help Qihoo to improve searches and to better match eyeballs with relevant advertising. Google could benefit from the tie-up as the benevolent rich uncle, using the local firm as a proxy for its commercial aims. By keeping Baidu from becoming an utter monopoly, goes this argument, Qihoo helps keep the China market open for Google’s eventual re-entry when and if the censorship regime changes.

That seems a plausible thesis, but there is another. Every move Google has tried to make to combat, expose or pervert China’s efforts at censorship has been met and defeated by the authorities—often with overwhelming force. This was true too of its latest warnings about censorship. In the end, it may be that Google simply stopped banging its head against the wall, having realised that the headache was pointless.

The notion that Google could curry favour with the leadership now by halting its warning messages is ridiculous, insists a former Google insider: “the opportunity to capitulate was lost forever when Google gave the middle finger and left.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Eric Schmidt, Google, Internet, Internet censorship, mobile applications, search engines
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Now, however, Google has cancelled that feature. From the Wall Street Journal blog:

A Google spokesman confirmed that the company has removed the warning function, but declined to comment on why it decided to do so. The U.S. company has faced a series of challenges in China since 2010, when it stopped adhering to China’s requirement that it self-censor search results. In November, Google’s Web services in China experienced brief but widespread interruptions.

When Google last year started tipping off users about risky search keywords, the move was viewed by some analysts as a potential challenge to Beijing’s efforts to police the Internet. When a user typed a word containing a potentially problematic Chinese character, a drop-down message would appear, saying that searching with that character “may temporarily break your connection to Google,” an interruption “outside Google’s control.” Google’s May 31 official blog post said: “We’ve had a lot of feedback that Google Search from mainland China can be inconsistent and unreliable…we’ve noticed that these interruptions are closely correlated with searches for a particular subset of queries.”

While Google has not officially explained the reason for the change, some technologists believe the company has given up the fight against Chinese government censorship. The Telegraph’s tech blogger Mic Wright writes:

From the moment Google introduced the feature, the Chinese internet censors fought back. But the ingenuity of Google’s engineers got round each block until they finally embedded the entire function in HTML on Google’s start page. That meant to block the notifications, China would have to block Google altogether. Inevitably, the search engine did end up blocked in its entirety more than once before the feature been activated. Gmail was also subject to blocks and a noticeable slowdown in performance. In the stand-off, Google blinked first. At a time when the Chinese government is strengthening its internet censorship measures, the firm has effectively admitted it just can’t beat them and is no longer willing to try.

Meanwhile, Yahoo, which has taken fire from free speech activists for its role in providing information to the Chinese government which helped convict activist Shi Tao in 2005, now offers a secure connection for its email users. From CSO:

Yahoo Web mail users can activate SSL in only a couple of clicks. Within the service, they only need to go to options and select “Make your Yahoo Mail more secure with SSL.”

Google rolled out SSL for Gmail in 2010, after it accused China-based hackers of launching highly sophisticated attacks to eavesdrop on human rights activists.

Indeed, in its letter to Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, the EFF said HTTPS communications was needed to protect dissidents. “As individuals who engage with at-risk communities targeted for surveillance and censorship, we see on a daily basis how this negligence (not providing secure connections) endangers human rights activists who fight in some of the most repressive environments to protect the basic freedoms that we take for granted,” the letter said.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google, Internet censorship, keyword filtering, search engines, Shi Tao, Yahoo
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Chen shocked the world in April when he made a daring, next-to-impossible escape, climbing over the wall surrounding his house (breaking his foot in the process) and catching a ride some 350 miles to Beijing, where he took refuge in the U.S. Embassy. After a tense, days-long diplomatic standoff closely involving Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (No. 3), a deal was struck under which Chen would be allowed to travel to the United States to study. Now at New York University, Chen has embraced his new role as an evangelist for human rights, making the case that incremental change — one village or even one person at a time — can eventually transform a superpower. Against all odds, he remains optimistic, believing that China, taking a cue from Japan and South Korea, must “learn Eastern democracy.” He even thinks it’s inevitable: “Nobody can stop the progress of history,” he says.

An interview with Chen Guangcheng by Isaac Stone Fish accompanies the list. In it, Chen discusses how the central government allows abuses by local authorities—see Guizhou journalist Li Yuanlong’s detention last week for a recent example—and the chances of change or even revolution in China’s near future.

The central government definitely knew I was illegally detained at home. As for how the local authorities invented lies to frame me to put me in prison, as for how they persecuted my entire family, [the central government] didn’t necessarily know about the details. Yet now, six months later, I still haven’t seen the central government follow the country’s laws and keep its promise and investigate and deal with those officials who recklessly and illegally committed crimes.

Throughout Chinese history, has any emperor said they want to hand over power? Every emperor wants his power to last generation after generation. But can they? The Communist Party cannot monopolize all of the power in the country forever. This is a reality they must accept.

The possibility of China facing a revolution in 2013 is pretty big. This is something that the powers that be in China understand more than anyone else. It’s a pity that international society still does not understand this and has still not prepared. America should immediately start moving from dealing with China’s powers that be to dealing with the Chinese people. It definitely won’t be like 1989.

Chen does not appear to view the possibility of revolution with any great relish: when asked what the worst idea of the year is, he answered “violence”.

Controversial artist Ai Weiwei, still unable to leave China over a year after his 81-day detention in 2011, is ranked 26th:

[…] Ai has found ways to occupy his time. When one of his Twitter followers asked in May whether he was working on any new artwork, Ai tweeted back, “I am the artwork.” In April, he set up cameras throughout his house, providing a live feed on his website and to his 170,000 followers. (“Twitter is my city, my favorite city,” he told FP this year.) The authorities soon pressured him into removing the cameras, evidently preferring that they be the only ones to watch the rotund 55-year-old work on his computer and play with his cats.

But make no mistake — this performance art is deeply political. Throughout his career Ai has insisted that artists have a duty to humanity that outweighs the obligations of nationalism. Even declaring one’s opposition to “trafficking children, selling HIV-infected blood, [and] operating slave labor coal pits” is enough to get branded as “anti-China” in today’s political climate, Ai once noted on his blog, asking, “If we aren’t anti-China, are we still human?”

Foreign Policy also published a slideshow from Ai’s first North American retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., noting that “the artist was not in attendance.”

British singer Elton John added a concert dedication to Ai’s list of recent accolades on Sunday. While dismissing this “disrespectful” gesture, Global Times took the opportunity to critique Chen and Ai’s inclusion in the Foreign Policy list:

Western society is seriously biased against China. When US magazine Foreign Policy compiled a list of 100 global thinkers from around the world, the first Chinese on that list was blind activist Chen Guangcheng, and the second was Ai Weiwei. Even to Chinese people who have sympathy for these two people, this list may seem ridiculous.

In a diverse era, we don’t hold that the existence of people like Chen and Ai is unexpected in China. Also, we don’t believe that the impact they have brought should be denied completely.

The selection of Chen and Ai makes people wonder whether the word “thinker” in Chinese and English have different meanings. We can just say that some Westerners are increasingly unable to contain themselves over China’s rise. They cannot control China through normal means and they are more likely to rush their fences.

A more nuanced piece of Aiconoclasm came last week from Paul Gladston at Randian:

There are […] significant dangers in the upholding of Ai as our sole representative/mediator of artistic resistance to authority within China. While Ai’s bluntly confrontational and often bombastic stance can be readily digested within Western liberal-democratic contexts where romantic notions of heroic dissent in the face of overwhelming power still persist, it is by no means representative of the critical positioning of most other Chinese artists. Ai may have situated himself admirably behind enlightened westernized ideals of freedom and openness, but the sheer bluntness and reductive simplicity of his critical approach to authority have effectively foreclosed a more searching discussion of contemporary art within China as well as the complex, web of localized cultural, social, political and economic forces that surround its production and reception.

[…] Ai Weiwei is right in drawing our repeated attention to the debilitating injustices of totalitarian power within China. He is also right to upbraid western viewers for their inability to see past what are for them the pleasurable ambiguities of contemporary Chinese art. Less convincing, however, is Ai’s wholly reductive view of the critical possibilities of contemporary art in China. By insisting on his own stridently oppositional approach towards power as the only legitimate game in town, and because we are already highly familiar with that approach, [he] has misrepresented the contemporary Chinese artworld. One might add that Ai is also romanticizing the conditions of criticality in the West.

At 54 in the Foreign Policy list is Yu Jianrong, for his concise but detailed roadmap for reform.

In April, he released a succinct, two-phase plan he called a “10-Year Outline of China’s Social and Political Development.” Despite its bland title, Yu’s blueprint offers a timetable for Chinese reform that for once is as credible as it is ambitious. The plan puts dates and specifics to the task, advocating, for example, a stronger law on private property, the revealing of “information pertaining to government affairs” and “officials’ property,” and the abolition of “speech crimes,” after which China should “open up” the media and political parties. Yu’s short manifesto immediately caused a splash when he released it to his nearly 1.5 million followers on the popular microblogging site Sina Weibo (though the government has maintained a deafening silence). “We’ve already decided to change,” Yu explained in an interview. “The question is: In which direction do we change, and from where do we start?” Sweeping reform in this authoritarian land of 1.3 billion won’t be easy, but Yu’s plan is as good a place to begin as any. The era, he said, of crossing the river “by feeling the stones” is over.

China Media Project’s David Bandurski translated Yu’s plan in March. Soon afterwards, Didi Kirsten Tatlow described it at The International Herald Tribune, together with some criticism from Tsinghua University political scientist Liu Yu:

Master plans like Mr. Kang [Youwei]’s, or Mr. Yu’s are “unrealistic,” she said.

“All Chinese intellectuals, especially the men, they tend to blur the line with being an official and then they’re thinking, ‘How should I design a system for the country?’ and ‘How to make progress?’

“In the West there are intellectuals who make proposals on specific things, but in general they don’t make plans for the whole country,” she said.

What is needed instead, she believes, is a broad debate, among ordinary people.

“A good plan should involve the whole society,” she said. “There should be a big debate on where the country should be going.”

Yu’s nomination for best idea of 2012 is Mo Yan’s controversial selection for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Mo’s chief rival for the award, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, took 49th place on the Foreign Policy list as a consolation prize.

At 69 is environmentalist Ma Jun:

[…] A journalist turned environmentalist who founded the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, Ma applies scientific rigor to exposing such corporate violations (more than 90,000 to date), flagging everything from a small coal-tar factory improperly storing its dangerous waste to Apple suppliers poisoning workers with a toxic chemical used on touch screens — as well as local governments that flout environmental regulations across China. Dozens of major multinationals now consult Ma’s pollution readings when working with suppliers in China. And by documenting environmental violations that had long been obvious but were never compiled in a way the public could easily understand, Ma has given statistical ammunition to Chinese citizens trying to nudge the Communist Party into cleaning up its act.

Wang Jisi, “China’s most respected expert on the United States”, came in at 73:

[…] What does Wang want us to know? That the feel-good stories U.S. officials tell themselves about China’s global ascent are an elaborate form of denial. In an influential monograph co-authored by Brookings Institution senior fellow Kenneth Lieberthal, Wang this year described China’s actions on the world stage as rooted in the conclusion that “America will seek to constrain or even upset China’s rise.” Beijing’s view, he says, is that the United States is “heading for decline” and that China’s development model provides an “alternative to Western democracy and market economies.” The result? “[T]hese views make many Chinese political elites suspect that it is the United States,” Wang says, “that is ‘on the wrong side of history.’”

And at 83 is the Taiwanese-American former head of Google China, venture capitalist Kai-fu Lee:

In an article he published on his LinkedIn page in October, Lee named China’s narrowly focused school curriculum and the risk-averse nature of Chinese students, as well as the country’s chaotic Internet environment, among the reasons China hasn’t yet produced its own Mark Zuckerberg. That may be why he has also started a popular education website encouraging Chinese students to think more creatively. Although none of his companies has exploded yet, Lee’s ultimate contribution may be more fundamental: laying both the intellectual and financial groundwork for a revolution in the world’s largest online community.

Perhaps more significant to China for now than any of the above are Aung San Suu Kyi and Thein Sein, who top the list having begun to pilot the formerly reliable Chinese satellite of Myanmar (also known as Burma) into a more open and international orbit:

Aung San Suu Kyi, the soft-spoken, iconic political activist whom devotees call simply “the Lady,” may not seem like an obvious partner for Thein Sein, but she has become one by doing what few legends of her stature can: embracing the messy pragmatism of politics. Although Burma’s struggles are far from over — she has warned that international investment has been too rapid, and ethnic violence is escalating — the willingness of both the Lady and the general to embrace short-term compromise and foster long-term reconciliation in what was only recently one of the world’s most isolated countries is something to celebrate.

Fittingly, Aung San Suu Kyi finally was able to accept her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in June. She used the occasion to remind the world of those like her, who struggle in the most forlorn places: “To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity.” It is a sentiment still felt from Aleppo to Havana, Pyongyang to Tehran, but also, as Aung San Suu Kyi and Thein Sein have shown, one that doesn’t need to be permanent.

See more on Chen Guangcheng, Ai Weiwei, Yu Jianrong, Ma Jun, Wang Jisi, Kai-fu Lee and Myanmar/Burma at CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ai Weiwei, Apple, artistic freedom, artists, Burma, central government, Chen Guangcheng, contemporary art, contemporary artists, education, Global Times, Google, Haruki Murakami, Hillary Clinton, HIV, house arrest, IPE, Kaifu Lee, kenneth lieberthal, Li Yuanlong, local government, Ma Jun, mo yan, Myanmar, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel Prize, pollution, private property, reform, reformers, revolution, slave labor, surveillance, trafficking, transparency, wang jisi, year end lists 2012, Yu Jianrong
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Starting earlier this year, Web police units directed the companies, which included joint ventures involving American corporations, to buy and install hardware to log the traffic of hundreds or thousands of computers, block selected Web sites, and connect with local police servers, according to industry executives and official directives obtained by The New York Times. Companies faced the threat of fines and suspended Internet service if they did not comply by prescribed deadlines.

The initiative was one in a range of shadowy tactics authorities deployed in the months leading up to the 18th Party Congress, which is scheduled to end on Wednesday, in an escalating campaign against information deemed threatening to party rule. The effort, while spottily executed, was alarming enough to spur one foreign industry association to lodge a complaint with the government. Several foreign companies quietly resisted the orders, which posed risks to communications and trade secrets that they take pains to secure.

…

This past summer, the Internet police in the provinces of Hebei and Shandong ordered three American companies to install the monitoring systems at local joint ventures, according to a spokesman for the Quality Brands Protection Committee, a foreign industry group representing more than 200 major corporations operating in China.

Elsewhere, American, Japanese and Korean companies received similar orders, executives said. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for their companies and feared compromising local business relationships.

The report adds color to the connection issues experienced by many within China last week, where netizens reportedly lost access to all Google services on Friday and Twitter warned users that efforts had been made to compromise their accounts. The Wall Street Journal noted that the Google outage highlighted the dangers Beijing’s information war poses to global businesses operating in China:

Beijing risks a backlash if it were to block Google outright on a long-term basis, said Mr. Wolf, of Wolf Group Asia. Many corporate users rely on Gmail and other Google services, and a blockage could make China a less-attractive place to do business. In addition, disruptions are increasingly unappealing to businesses that rely on cloud services, which are offered by Google and others and in which data are stored remotely.

“If China insists in the medium and long term of creating another Great Firewall between the China cloud and the rest of the world, China will be an increasingly untenable place to do business,” Mr. Wolf said.

Such a move also could put Beijing in violation of its free-trade commitment under the World Trade Organization, which China joined in 2001. China has said it complies with WTO requirements.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, cybersecurity, Google, Great Firewall, information control, online public opinion, Twitter
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If you are interested in participating in this project by submitting and/or translating terms, please contact the CDT editors at CDT [at] chinadigitaltimes [dot] net.

谷鸽/古鸽 (gǔ gē): valley dove/ancient dove

Sounds the same as “Google” (谷歌). Like the grass-mud horse, the valley dove is among the pantheon of mythical creatures created to avoid, and ridicule, web censorship. Google China moved its servers from the mainland to Hong Kong in March 2010, following a cyber attack which it traced to the Chinese government.

It seems the valley dove simply could not survive in China:

According to an American Indian legend, this bird has a very important habit, called “don’t be evil,” translated into Chinese it means “fear River Crabs.” When they encountered an environment where there were too many river crabs, they could not survive as well as grass mud horses; instead, they migrated South… According to the statistics of Nasdaq animal research institute, there are about 120 billion valley doves in the world. But it is currently almost extinct in mainland China. The original Chinese valley doves have migrated to the south, Hong Kong, in large numbers.

Many animal lovers went to the Google park in Niaoguan village in Beijing to mourn its leaving.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google, valley dove, word of the week
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All Google services, including its search engine, Gmail and Maps, were inaccessible in China on Friday night and into Saturday, the company confirmed. The block comes as the 18th Communist Party Congress, the once-in-a-decade meeting to appoint new government leadership, gets under way.

Traffic to Google sites fell off Friday evening in China, according to Google’s Transparency Report, which provides information about traffic worldwide.

The company said it was not having any technical problems, but did not say whether it believed its sites had been blocked by the government or were the victims of hacking.

“We’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end,” said Christine Chen, a Google spokeswoman.

GreatFire.org provided technical details and advice on workarounds, claiming that “never before have so many people been affected by a decision to block a website.”

Here’s what we know:

• The subdomains www.google.com, mail.google.com, google-analytics.com, docs.google.com, drive.google.com, maps.google.com, play.google.com and perhaps many more are all currently DNS poisoned in China. Instead of the real IP addresses, any lookups from China to any of these domains result in the following IP: 59.24.3.173. That IP address is located in Korea and doesn’t serve any website at all.
• This means that none of these websites, including Google Search, currently work in China, unless you have a VPN or other cirumvention tool.
• Using a DNS server outside of China doesn’t help. A lookup of www.google.com to 8.8.8.8 is also distorted, by the Great Firewall.
• So far you can still access other country versions of Google such as www.google.co.uk.

Even before Friday, users in China had experienced more than usually severe problems, even when using VPNs to tunnel under the Great Firewall. From Paul Mozur at China Real Time on Wednesday:

Chinese authorities routinely move to exert more control over the Internet around big meetings and politically sensitive dates, including by disrupting traffic to foreign websites outside the country’s censorship system, commonly referred to as the Great Firewall. But a number of users have complained of unusually frequent disruptions in the run-up to the 18th Party Congress, with some saying they had all but given up trying to use Google’s search engine and email service.

[…] Foreigners and a savvy minority of Chinese Internet users have typically gotten around blocks of Western sites like Facebook and Youtube with VPNs, which form an encrypted link to a server outside of the country, thereby directing traffic around China’s Internet filters. But in recent weeks VPNs as well have been targeted, with two separate VPN companies telling China Real Time that they have noticed an uptick in blockages and interferences.

A spokesman for Witopia said the recent disruption is “one of the most severe” the company had ever seen.

[…] “China, with their globalized economy and growth rate, obviously cannot completely isolate themselves from the global Internet or it would exact a significant cost on their economy. It likely already is. They just seem to like to remind everyone that they are the boss of their corner of the Internet and they will integrate with the rest of us at their own pace,” he said.

On top of these other problems, Twitter warned many users on Thursday that efforts had been made to compromise their accounts. It quickly became apparent that these warnings were not limited to users with links to China, and that most had been sent out by mistake, but the company has given no indication of how many or which warnings were genuine.

Updated on November 10th at 1:36 PST: GreatFire.org has published a follow-up post speculating on reasons for the Google blocking and its rapid reversal:

1. Was it a mistake?

The blocking of the worlds number one (and Chinas number two) search engine took place on a Friday night. It’s possible that someone simply pressed the wrong button and accidentally DNS poisoned the wrong website. Perhaps they only meant to block mail.google.com. If it was a mistake, that would explain why it was seemingly reversed this morning. […]

2. Were the authorities testing the public opinion?

We’ve argued before that the authorites have stayed away from blocking access to GMail only because they are afraid of the reaction if they would cut it off completely. However, they have taken actions to make it slow and unstable. In March, 2011, it seemed like they were going to block GMail but then they backed down. Could it be that this quick decision to reverse the blocking of Google was a similar test of the publics reaction? […]

3. Were the authorities testing the “block Google” button?

Another possibility is that this was a test of a new “block Google” button. The authorities may want to know that, if they so wish, they can easily order the blocking of all Google services in China. If this was indeed such a test, the timing seems convenient (Friday night, when international businesses are closed).

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, Google, Great Firewall, Internet censorship, Twitter, VPN
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As you think about the overall situation for the rule of law, and development of civil society and individual liberties in China, would you say that things are on the whole getting better? Or getting worse?

[…] I think China has taken the first step, which is to make sure that there are rules and regulations and laws that govern the society. China is not doing a great job of the second step, which is to make sure that those rules are implemented and complied with in practice. Law enforcement generally speaking cannot function in today’s Chinese society. That is what has given rise to all these numerous cases in which the government ignores the rules that they themselves have set up. For instance, the case of my nephew [Chen Kegui, arrested after Chen's departure], and my own case. These are all examples of the government’s blatant ignorance of the law. The government acts contrary to the law, tortures people, ‘disappears’ them, does all sorts of things to the innocent people without any legal basis,

What do you think outside individuals or organizations who support China’s evolution to a rule-of-law society can most usefully do?

[…] I want to deliver this message to people in any democracy in the world. I want to let them know that every effort they have made in this respect will make a huge difference in China. I urge them to have faith in their ability to make changes in China. Be confident and speak out. The sky won’t fall just because people speak up on their own opinion.

Chen reiterated his view that Western companies should take on more social responsibility in China, singling Google out for praise: “It really has played a model role in this respect …. So far I believe that Google has earned the confidence of the Chinese people.”

Chen finally met with his admirer Christian Bale this week at an awards dinner hosted by Human Rights First. The Batman star mounted an unsuccessful attempt to visit Chen last December in the village of Dongshigu where he and his family were being illegally held. One of the guards who aggressively blocked Bale’s visit went on to attain some measure of Internet stardom as a new Batman nemesis and generally Photoshopped omnipresence.

Fallows also wrote a short passage on Chen for The Atlantic’s Brave Thinkers 2012 feature:

Chen, who has been blind since early childhood and taught himself law, showed physical courage comparable to the Tank Man’s in climbing over walls and feeling his way along roadsides for miles, to escape the house in which local authorities had detained and physically abused him and his family for years. He broke a bone in his foot and fell repeatedly, but he continued on.

Yet his more impressive courage is intellectual and temperamental. Intellectually, he has challenged Chinese authorities, not to give up their hold on power, but instead to live up to the commitments they have made to Chinese citizens, on issues ranging from the rights of the disabled to protection against forced abortions. Temperamentally, he has remained resolute and optimistic, even while knowing that his family still in China is vulnerable to retribution, and that as an exile, he may lose influence in his homeland.

Also on the Brave Thinkers list is Shanghai-born architect Jun Xia, currently directing the design of the 121-floor Shanghai Tower.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chen Guangcheng, chen kegui, Christian Bale, civil society, corporate responsibility, Google, James Fallows, rule of law
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Emergency Notice

All In-Network Hotels:

Starting today, if you have guests checked in who are holders of J-1 visas (resident foreign journalists), J-2 visas (temporary foreign journalist) or other resident permits staying as “journalists,” you are responsible to promptly report their presence to your respective Exit-Entry Administration. The fifteen municipal hotels should report to the second unit of the Municipal Branch of the Exit-Entry Administration. Every work unit should strictly implement these instructions. If there is any delay or failure in reporting, we will investigate the responsible work unit according to regulation.

Once each work unit has received this notice, all should immediately report to their front desk managers to plan its implementation. Once the front desk managers of the fifteen municipal hotels have completed these arrangements, they are to promptly report to the second unit of the Municipal Branch of the Exit-Entry Administration.

Exit-Entry Administration Municipal Branch

August 17, 2012

Via Over the Wall. Translation by Mengyu Dong.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, Google, leadership transition, leaked documents, Over the Wall
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Wang Xiaoning’s wife Yu Ling said in a phone interview that the Beijing No. 2 Prison told her of his release Friday morning and that she should meet him at the prison gate.

[…] Rights groups said that passages from writings cited at his trial in 2003 included: “Without a multiparty system, free elections and separation of powers, any political reform is fraudulent.” Others called China an “authoritarian dictatorship,” and complained of continuing widespread corruption, poverty and workers exploitation.

A lawsuit Wang and others filed in the United States showed that Yahoo’s wholly owned subsidiary based in Hong Kong gave police information linking Wang to his anonymous e-mails and other political writings he posted online.

Yahoo could not immediately be reached for comment.

Yu told AFP that Wang’s political rights will be suspended for another two years, and that he has been mistreated in prison but remains in reasonable health.

Yahoo was also involved in the prosecution of journalist Shi Tao, who is still serving a ten-year sentence passed in 2005 for leaking state secrets. Wang and others later sued the US company, which settled in 2007 for an undisclosed amount. Yahoo founder and then-CEO Jerry Yang later urged the Bush administration to demand Wang and Shi’s release.

These cases illustrate the legal entanglements that come with a physical business presence in China. Google avoided storing sensitive user information on Chinese servers in order to avoid any similar predicament, but was still forced to filter search results and eventually left the Chinese mainland. Twitter alarmed users in January with an announcement that the service would selectively block posts in accordance with local laws, a move widely suspected of being a concession to allow entry to the Chinese market. CEO Dick Costolo quickly clarified, however, that “I don’t think the current environment in China is one in which we can operate“.

See also a 2007 Wired article on Wang’s case (via Isolda Morillo), and more on Wang and Yahoo via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: freedom of expression, Google, Internet companies, Jerry Yang, Shi Tao, Twitter, Wang Xiaoning, Yahoo
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In the world’s largest democracy, recent fears of pogroms and ethnic violence have highlighted just how fractious and febrile India’s social makeup is. Rumors circulating last week of planned attacks on migrants from the Indian Northeast saw tens of thousands of Northeasterners in some of India’s main cities cram onto trains bound for their remote homelands. The “exodus” — as it was branded in bold block letters by the Indian media — followed earlier incidents of ethnic strife in the northeastern state of Assam, where members of the indigenous Bodo tribe clashed with Bengali Muslim settlers, driving hundreds of thousands of Muslims out of their homes. Mass SMSes, emails and posts over Facebook and Twitter warned of (and, in some cases, encouraged) Muslim reprisal attacks on Northeasterners in cities like India’s tech capital, Bangalore, as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan drew to a close, sparking a nationwide panic.

The government’s efforts to stem the panic included a flurry of take-down requests to Google, Twitter and Facebook, as well as limited blocks on webpages from Al Jazeera, The Telegraph, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Wikipedia. While there has been some speculation about ulterior motives behind this response, The Atlantic’s Max Fisher wrote that the episode raises difficult questions about the role of social networks in spreading the hysteria.

Technology didn’t cause any of this, of course. But social media and text messaging, both of which are becoming increasingly common in reaches of India’s enormous lower and middle classes, accelerated the flow of rumors and of inflammatory images. Some of the material turns out to have been fake: doctored images and videos showed anti-Muslim attacks that never happened. Because the rumors can be self-fulfilling, their lightening-fast spread across India’s vast population, much of which is very newly connected to the web, can be costly. The original 1993 crisis displaced an estimated 20,000 people, but this most recent manifestation has already displaced 300,000, and killed 80. No doubt there are many factors that might explain the new severity of this old crisis, but with the spread of rumors apparently playing a significant role, the recent explosion in Indian Internet access rates (the 100 millionth Indian web users logged on in December) could be relevant. The government, unable to counter the destabilizing rumors, shut down some of the means of their dispersal.

[…] When world governments in places like Ethiopia or China censor the internet, they tend to cite some version of the same basic idea: free discussion is a threat to “national stability.” Typically, web freedom activists perceive this as little more than an excuse for online authoritarianism, and they’re probably often correct. But what if, in India’s case, the government could actually be right? Can Photoshopping up some “evidence” of ethnic attacks be akin to inciting violence? What about sending a text message falsely claiming such attacks, for which a Bangalore man was arrested? At what point does a Facebook rumor become a cry of “fire” in the crowded theatre of Indian ethnic anxieties?

Chinese authorities have long used the “cancer” (or bats) of potentially destabilising online rumours to justify Internet controls. The exodus in India, argued Global Times, demonstrated the danger posed by “unchecked websites”, and the need for tough measures to control them:

[…] What happened in India can help us understand more objectively whether the Internet can foment social instability and how it does so. The exodus was a result of public panic that was easily ignited by rumors. It takes more than working with social networking websites to appease the agitated public and prevent this from happening again.

But New Delhi’s worries that the Internet promoted the rumors didn’t come out of nowhere. As the inventor of social networking sites, the US has experience in regulating them. But these websites have caused disturbances in other countries. The unrest in the UK last summer exposed the side effects of these networking sites, prompting the government to ponder blocking Internet information flow in times of emergency, a decision that led to an outcry.

[…] India is a poor country. Survival is top priority for the majority of the population. Every piece of information carried by the Internet or cell phone looks real to grass-roots people.

China’s situation is relatively good. It is hard to imagine rumors causing an exodus. The government’s reaction and public’s ability to discern false information are much better. But the mass of information flowing through the Internet still presents a challenge to governance. The Internet has become deeply integrated in Chinese society, but can still create a disturbance.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Facebook, Global Times, Google, India, Internet censorship, social stability, Twitter
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“I believe that ultimately censorship fails,” said Schmidt, when asked about whether the Chinese government’s censorship of the Internet can be sustained. “China’s the only government that’s engaged in active, dynamic censorship. They’re not shy about it.”

When the Chinese Internet censorship regime fails, the penetration of information throughout China will also cause political and social liberalization that will fundamentally change the nature of the Chinese government’s relationship to its citizenry, Schmidt believes.

[…] The push for information freedom in China goes hand in hand with the push for economic modernization, according to Schmidt, and government-sponsored censorship hampers both.

“We argue strongly that you can’t build a high-end, very sophisticated economy… with this kind of active censorship. That is our view,” he said.

Schmidt’s other comments may not persuade Beijing that relaxed controls would be in its best interests. On Iran, for example, he says that “before they overthrow the current leader, [citizens] have to have the information to do that.”

In May, Google started revealing Beijing’s censorship of sensitive search terms. Soon afterwards, some Gmail users received warnings of possible intrusion attempts by unspecified “state-sponsored attackers”, believed in many cases to be Chinese.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google, Great Firewall, Internet censorship, Iran
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