With President Clinton handling the human freedoms and free trade, Commerce Secretary William Daley is appealing to China to keep the Internet free.
"I would strongly urge China's leadership to let the Internet evolve with very limited government control," Daley told faculty and students today at Shanghai's leading technology university, Jiao Tong University. "To constrict it would almost defeat its purpose. To limit its reach would be to deny China the social, intellectual, and commercial connections which are demanded in today's global village."
Daley's speech echoed one of Clinton's main themes on this state visit: the link between personal freedom and national prosperity.
Ordinary Chinese have only in the past several years begun to enjoy access to the Internet, which initially had been the privilege of a small community of scientists in the communist nation.
But China, like other authoritarian states, has sought to keep a tight leash on political content as well as pornography. It blocks access to the Web sites of many foreign news media, with filters that target such words as "Taiwan," "dissident," or "Tibet."
Daley told the university audience that he was concerned that China would turn the Internet into a network that "will only provide access to Chinese information sources, therefore shutting out others from around the world."
Despite Beijing's efforts to hold the same tight rein on the Internet as it has on its mass media, enterprising surfers are finding ways around government censors by logging on through accounts in Hong Kong and other areas.
Political dissidents exchange email with Chinese supporters abroad, while some have started an underground electronic magazine and a newsletter containing hard-to-access reports from Chinese language media outside the country.
Industry experts estimate that just 600,000 of China's 1.2 billion people are logged on to the Internet, but predict that figure will mushroom to almost 6 million by 2002.
