The following excerpt is from remarks by Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Qin Gang (秦刚) during a press conference on March 31, 2009, and is being widely commented on by Chinese netizens:
Question: YouTube was blocked at one point last week and was available again from China, and now it seems to be blocked again. There are speculations that it links to the release of video from the “Tibetan Government in Exile”. Do you have any comment on that? Is there any particular offensive material on YouTube right now that causes it to be blocked again?
Qin Gang: I answered this question at the last regular press conference and here I’d like to reiterate my answer briefly. The Internet in China is fully open and the Chinese Government manages the Internet according to the law. As for what you can and cannot watch, watch what you can watch, and don’t watch what you cannot watch.
[The translation above appeared on the Foreign Ministry website. However, CDT re-translated the last sentence to be closer to the original Chinese]
问：上周Youtube网站曾一度被屏蔽，现在又再次被封，有人猜测是这跟“西藏流亡政府”发布在Youtube上的一段视频有关。你对此有何评论?还是Youtube上又出现了一些导致它被封的视频片断?
答：上次记者会我已经回答了这个问题，我在这里再简短重申一下。中国的互联网是充分开放的，同时中国政府也要依法管理网络。至于能看什么，不能看什么，能看的就看，不能看的就别看。
