From Christian Science Monitor:
China has more people online than any other country. But its rulers are also world-class obstructors of the Internet, a practice sure to be under scrutiny during the Olympic Games, when foreigners used to Web freedom will visit Beijing.
How China treats the foreign press during the Games, and especially how it treats Chinese who help them, will be one story. But the big, ongoing story is how the government keeps access to the Internet under tight control and uses it to violate human rights.
Because of restrictions agreed to by American search engine companies – Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft – Chinese citizens can see only a portion of the Web visible elsewhere in the world. The censorship is aimed at topics that the government regards as threatening to its authoritarian rule.
