China is sticking to its planned launch of a controversial Internet censoring software in about one week, an official newspaper said yesterday, despite Washington’s concerns over the move’s possible impact on trade and access to information.
The China Daily said the plan to require the Web-filtering Green Dam Youth Escort software on all personal computers sold in China starting on July 1 remains unchanged, citing an unnamed source from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It is to be pre-installed or included on a compact disc with all PCs sold in China.
The report came amid efforts by Chinese Web surfers to lobby the communist government to scrap its plan and after the US embassy said US diplomats sat down on Friday with officials of China’s ministries of commerce and information technology to express concern and seek more information about the system.
“The US is concerned about actions that seek to restrict access to the Internet as well as restrictions on the internationally recognized right to freedom of expression,” the embassy said in a statement on Monday.
“The US government is concerned about Green Dam both in terms of its potential impact on trade and the serious technical issues raised by use of the software,” it said. “We have asked the Chinese to engage in a dialogue on how to address these concerns.”
Chinese officials say the Internet filtering is an effort to block access to violent and pornographic material. But Internet users have ridiculed the system and some are circulating petitions appealing to the government to scrap it.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
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