However, obtaining online access is still a real problem for most people.
China's Internet (International Networking) and Intranet (China Wide Web) are completely state-controlled. Anyone who sets up or uses a network needs prior approval from the government. The government dictates what people should and should not access on the Web.
To qualify for an Internet account, one needs to go to the local phone office, sign agreement to an Internet regulation and register with the police for the intent to surf.
Even with steadily declining access fees, Internet service in China is generally much more expensive than that in the U.S. An account holder must pay $75 a month, in addition to a $120 deposit, for unlimited access to ChinaNet, the primary commercial network run by the Ministry of Post, and Telecommunications. With the exception of a burgeoning class of entrepreneurs, most people in China still earn $100 a month or less, and can not afford a personal Internet account.
The New Internet Regulation, passed by the State Council in December, 1997 and promulgated by the Ministry of Public Scrutiny, lists the types of information Chinese people are not supposed to tinker with online. The forbidden material generally falls into two categories:
1. "sexually suggestive material, gambling, violence, murder"
2. politically sensitive topics that include sites "inciting to overthrow the government or social system, inciting division of the country, harming national unification and injuring the reputation of the state organs."
Those Internet users in China caught violating the regulation are to be fined for US$625 to US$1,875 for a minor violation. For more serious offenses, computer and network access can be denied for six months. Public Security can suspend a business operating license or cancel its network registration.
Since the passage of the first Internet regulation in February 1996, Chinese government has been actively blocking "undesired" Websites. Domain names of those sites are blocked at the router level.
Christ Kern, the director of computing services for the Voice of America, said he suspects the Station's Web site has been blocked in China at times. The evidence: listeners' complaints through e-mail, which is less likely to be blocked or censored.
As recent as the end of April, Kern said, he has received e-mails from users in China, complaining that the VOA public Internet server is being blocked.
The site was blocked, he said, between September, 1996 and January, 1997, following a pronouncement by Chinese government officials that they were prepared to take action to block access to certain information on the public Internet. Other News organizations were banned as well during that tome including The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN, according to Kern.
