Chinese authorities are now more worried about what their own people think, film and say than about news and views from the outside world, blogs Lindsey Hilsum.
I’m back in China after a year’s absence, and I note a subtle difference in the censorship.
The BBC news website is no longer blocked, but they’ve stopped Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo and other social networking and video uploading sites.
In other words, the Chinese authorities are now more worried about what their own people think, film and say than about news and views from the outside world.
The sites have been blocked since riots in the western province of Xinjiang in July. They feared the Iran phenomenon, when protestors used mobile phones to film events and sent messages out via Twitter when foreign correspondents were banned.
In fact, initially foreign reporters were allowed to report from Urumqi, because the government thought the story of how Uighurs had taken out their anger about discrimination on Han people would reflect badly on the Uighurs, not the government.
Now pretty much all information from Urumqi is banned, apart from brief government news reports of people being executed. I don’t know what’s happening there, but I have a nagging suspicion that the truth may conflict with the government message that “harmony” has been restored.
The latest clumsy attempts at censorship involve Obama’s interview here last week. The Americans refused to let him be interviewed by CCTV, the state network. Instead they said he would talk to Southern Weekend, a pioneering newspaper with a reputation for pushing the boundaries.
But even Southern Weekend comes under the dreaded Publicity Department, which duly sent a list of questions. The editors did not dare ask any others, because this was a matter of state.
The full interview, bland as it was, appeared in the newspaper, but the online version was censored in part. The questions had been written by the censors themselves, but some answers were clearly deemed dangerous.
A few months ago a Chinese diplomat asked me if China wasn’t much more open than when I first came here three years ago. From what I’ve seen since my return, I would say: “Up to a point, Lord Copper” .