On the Foreign Policy magazine blog, Mike Boyer writes about his recent meeting with Li Wufeng, the Director General of the State Council Information Office:
This is Li Wufeng, China’s top Internet cop.
A quiet man who fidgets in his seat and whose voice is at times nearly inaudible, Li is the director-general of China’s State Council Information Office (SCIO), the agency in charge of regulating Internet content inside China. I and a handful of other Western journalists met with Li for an hour today in the SCIO’s main office in Beijing.
Li started by giving us the latest stats on China’s Internet presence. They are impressive, including 120 million Internet users and 30 million bloggers. Staggering numbers, particularly considering the extent to which the Chinese state continues to control the Internet. This is a subject Li pooh-poohs. In fact, by his account, China not only doesn’t censor the Internet, it doesn’t even know how. [Full text]
