From The Economist (link):
“DO YOU know how serious a mistake you’ve made?” Yan Yuanzhang recalls an official asking him not long ago. Mr Yan had been summoned to Beijing’s Internet Propaganda Management Office to talk about his websites. They were causing, he was told, the Communist Party to lose face. They were providing material that foreign media could use to attack China. They were illegal and must be closed down within 24 hours.
“Farewell, worker comrades,” wrote Mr Yan in notices posted that day on his China-based websites, China Workers Net and Communist Net. Visitors could hear a lugubrious rendition of the communist anthem, the Internationale, through their computer speakers as they read. “Whether there is any hope of starting again, heaven knows.” He says now that he will relaunch one of the two sites on May 1st, this time on a server in Taiwan.
It is remarkable that the websites lasted as long as they did.
See also “Chinese Premier Defends Country’s Internet Censorship” from All Headline News (link):
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is defending his country’s censorship of the Internet, saying it was necessary to safeguard “national, social and collective interests.”
The Premier says, “Every citizen in this country has the freedom of speech and the freedom of publishing, but at the same time, every citizen must conscientiously abide by law and order to safeguard national, social and collective interests.”
