Chinese president calls for better Internet regulation

China’s President Hu Jintao told fellow Chinese leaders to create a “healthy online culture” through better regulation, state-run media reported Wednesday.

Speaking to an Internet study group of China’s Communist Party, Hu said “We should spread more information that is in good taste, and promote online products that can represent the grand Chinese culture,” according to reports on the English-language Web site of People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper.

Hu’s remarks came one day after the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) released its annual report on China’s Internet users, estimating the current number of Netizens in the country — defined as an individual aged six or older who spends on average at least one hour per week online — at 137 million, roughly 10 percent of China’s total population.

Since 1996, China has blocked access to foreign Web sites it finds politically or socially unacceptable, such as those advocating independence for Tibet, Taiwan, or Xinjiang; those promoting the banned Falun Gong cult; news sites such as the British Broadcasting Corp.’s BBC News in both English and Chinese; and information sites including the English and Chinese versions of Wikipedia, although the English site was accessible for about one month last year.

China has also prosecuted political activists who posted anti-government or pro-democracy information online. The country’s approach to the Internet has embroiled foreign companies for their seeming compliance with censorship and restrictions on online freedom of expression.

Last week, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Vodafone Group agreed to create a framework for a code of conduct in cooperation with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote freedom of expression and privacy rights. The NGOs include Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; Business for Social Responsibility; Electronic Frontier Foundation; Human Rights in China; and Reporters Without Borders.

Although the code is intended as a global initiative, the involvement of China-specific NGOs and the criticism levelled Google and Yahoo for their conduct in China highlighted the importance of the world’s second-largest Internet market.

Google was criticized for its creation of a censored, local version of its search engine, leaving co-founder Sergey Brin to speculate in public in June last year if his company had handled the situation properly. A Yahoo subsidiary was cited by human rights groups for working with Chinese police to identify political activists, who were ultimately arrested and prosecuted for posting anti-government opinions and information online.

Not all of China’s online problems come from foreign sources. In 2005, the government initiated a campaign to stamp out homegrown Internet pornography, handing down sentences from five years to life imprisonment to online pornographers. Chinese authorities have also cracked down on Internet cafes from time to time, especially in Beijing, seeing them as an “unhealthy” environment and banning minors from entering their premises.