China’s Internet regulator, asked about the apparent blocking of some online accounts of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, yesterday said that Internet service providers were responsible for online content and had the right to shut down Web sites.
The comment came in response to an enquiry about reports that the social media accounts of Hong Kong’s biggest English-language daily newspaper had been blocked and that a critical online Chinese-language Caixin magazine article had been deleted.
“The state Internet information office has enforcement responsibility, in accordance with the law, to carry out Internet information content management and supervision,” the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a faxed statement.
“Internet information service providers take on the main responsibility for any law-breaking and harmful Internet accounts that exist, and have the right in accordance with the relevant laws and rules and their user ‘service agreements’ to take measures including temporarily halting usage and cancelling registration,” it said.
The South China Morning Post has in recent weeks reported the mystery of five Hong Kong booksellers who dealt in gossipy books about Chinese leaders and went missing only to resurface in Chinese custody. The five went missing over the past six months, sparking fears in the West that Chinese authorities were overriding the “one country, two systems” formula protecting Hong Kong’s freedoms since its return to China from British rule in 1997.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said its law enforcement officials would never do anything illegal, especially not overseas, and called on foreign governments not to interfere in Hong Kong affairs.
The Post has also reported freely on anti-Beijing street protests in Hong Kong and the territory’s annual commemoration of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, which are taboo in China.
China’s influential state-backed tabloid Global Times yesterday published an article saying that while China was exploring a wider public discourse, particularly on the Internet, limits to free speech were narrower in China than in the West.
The apparent blocking of the Post accounts comes during the annual National People’s Congress session in Beijing, which has traditionally been a politically sensitive time.
The Weibo social media account of the Post shows a message saying: “Sorry, there’s an error with the account you’re trying to visit and it is temporarily unavailable.”
A search for the Post’s WeChat account does not produce any results. but scanning a QR code leads to a page that says: “Features for this blocked account not available.”
The newspaper’s Web site has a message saying it is not available.
The Post has not reported that it has been blocked and spokesman Michael Chu did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Thursday or yesterday.
A spokesman for Sina Weibo Corp (新浪微博) declined to comment, as did Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), the company that owns WeChat.
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
DETERMINATION: Beijing’s actions toward Tokyo have drawn international attention, but would likely bolster regional coordination and defense networks, the report said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is likely to prioritize security reforms and deterrence in the face of recent “hybrid” threats from China, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said. The bureau made the assessment in a written report to the Legislative Yuan ahead of an oral report and questions-and-answers session at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The key points of Japan’s security reforms would be to reinforce security cooperation with the US, including enhancing defense deployment in the first island chain, pushing forward the integrated command and operations of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and US Forces Japan, as
IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu said the strengthening of military facilities would help to maintain security in the Taiwan Strait Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi, visiting a military base close to Taiwan, said plans to deploy missiles to the post would move forward as tensions smolder between Tokyo and Beijing. “The deployment can help lower the chance of an armed attack on our country,” Koizumi told reporters on Sunday as he wrapped up his first trip to the base on the southern Japanese island of Yonaguni. “The view that it will heighten regional tensions is not accurate.” Former Japanese minister of defense Gen Nakatani in January said that Tokyo wanted to base Type 03 Chu-SAM missiles on Yonaguni, but little progress
NO CHANGES: A Japanese spokesperson said that Tokyo remains consistent and open for dialogue, while Beijing has canceled diplomatic engagements A Japanese official blasted China’s claims that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has altered Japan’s position on a Taiwan crisis as “entirely baseless,” calling for more dialogue to stop ties between Asia’s top economies from spiraling. China vowed to take resolute self-defense against Japan if it “dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait” in a letter delivered Friday to the UN. “I’m aware of this letter,” said Maki Kobayashi, a senior Japanese government spokeswoman. “The claim our country has altered its position is entirely baseless,” she said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday. The Chinese Ministry
RSS