China’s red cards - 10 September, 2002

Following the searching engine Google, access to which was banned in China starting with September 2, western media report that AltaVista will suffer the same fate.

As soon as the blockade was applied to AltaVista, all hopes of the Google management to reach a compromise with the Chinese authorities collapsed. Originally, the ban concerned some web-sites,  including BBC, but search engines are prohibited in China for the first time. Why?
 
A press-secretary with the Chinese Foreign Ministry explained the situation the other day and said that “Internet was abundant in bad information.” Probably, he meant not only pornography.
“Domination is the computer networks is the commanding heights of prospective wars”, such was the title of an article published in China’s main army newspaper at the end of August. The article said, battles in the computer networks would soon gain more and more importance, they would be gradually developing from just operative support to current operations into key operations of the war.

It is clear that Chinese authorities realize perfectly well the danger of orientation to the West on Russia’s example. This orientation has already become one of the central ideological fronts in China. Moreover, China is on the threshold of the next party congress which is to confirm drastic changes in creation of the market system and renovation of the leadership.

The Google proscription from the Chinese Internet market is a strong blow for the company’s management. China’s Internet market is rather wide (number of Internet users in China has reached almost 46 million people), which is the first reason for regrets. Second, the company spent much money to translate the search engine into the Chinese language. However, the very fact of disqualification is even more important for Google. It is like a red card given to a football player.

Google and AltaVista will not be able to participate in China’s orientation to the west any more. No matter how severely the Chinese censorship is criticized, the ousted searching engines should blame themselves for the expulsion. Google and AltaVista allowed unpardonable mistakes concerning the problems of Taiwan and Tibet,  the fanatical sect of Falun Gong, these are the problem which are so much painful for China.

Red cards to Google and AltaVista should be considered as warning signs to those Russian web-sites that sometimes follow an anti-Chinese policy. For example, when they try, in defiance of the international law, to represent Taiwan as an independent state encouraging dissident activity of its leaders, the activity carried out in the interests of American supremacy.

Andrey Krushinsky
PRAVDA.Ru
Beijing
China