New PCs in China must have censor software: report

BLOOMBERG
Tuesday, Jun 09, 2009, Page 1

“Computer users have no control over modifications to the software, which may be used to collect personal data or filter other Web sites.”— Charles Mok, chairman of the Hong Kong division of Internet Society

China plans to require all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 to include software that prevents access to an automatically updated list of Web sites banned by the government, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

The plan is aimed at preventing “harmful” information from influencing young people, an unpublicized Ministry of Industry and Information Technology document dated May 19 said, the WSJ reported yesterday.

PC makers have been told of the requirement, part of a government program called “Green Dam-Youth Escort,” the paper said.

“The apparent objective of the software is to control access to pornographic sites, but we don’t know what else is in the code,” said Charles Mok (莫乃光), chairman of the Hong Kong division of Internet Society, an international standard-setting body. “Computer users have no control over modifications to the software, which may be used to collect personal data or filter other Web sites.”

China blocks Web sites for organizations such as Amnesty International whose content it deems unacceptable. Twitter’s social-networking service and Microsoft Corp’s Bing.com were inaccessible in China last week as the government tightened security the day before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

China ranks No. 1 for online censorship, said Herdict.org, which compiles reports of Web outages.

PCs in China must ship with software made by Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co and Beijing Dazheng Human Language Technology Academy Co, both of which have military and security ministry ties, the WSJ said.

The software is mainly targeted at pornography, the report cited Bryan Zhang, Jinhui’s founder, as saying.

“We are concerned about the reports,” said Richard Buangan, a US embassy spokesman in Beijing.

Wang Lijian, spokesman for the ministry, said he couldn’t immediately comment when contacted by Bloomberg News.

China has told PC makers to offer software that blocks some Web sites, Liana Teo, a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Hewlett-Packard Co, told Bloomberg News by telephone.

Makers have the option of installing the software on computers before shipping, or including it on a compact disc, Teo said.

Lenovo Group spokesman Reid Walker, and Dell spokeswoman Faith Brewitt, couldn’t immediately comment on the WSJ report when contacted by Bloomberg News.

Jill Tan, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment.

“For the PC vendors, there is no commercial rationale for installing a program like this, apart from the need to comply with Chinese government rules,” Mok said.

Amnesty International is among 165 Internet sites rendered inaccessible to Chinese Web users in the past week, the most among countries surveyed by Herdict, a project of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Twitter, Flickr, Opera, Live, Wordpress and Blogger are among Web sites blocked as of June 2, two days before the Tiananmen anniversary, Reporters Without Borders said.

Web sites of the Hong Kong-based Apple Daily and Yahoo Hong Kong News were also inaccessible.

The Chinese Communist Party blocks access to Web sites criticizing it or publishing articles deemed unfavorable. Cyber cafes, where many Chinese access the Web, must install filtering software, monitor users’ activities and record their identities under Chinese law.

Lawyer says China must free dissident writer Liu

AP , BEIJING
Tuesday, Jun 09, 2009, Page 5

“At the very least, they need to use some other kind of measure to keep him, such as issuing a formal notice of arrest or detention, or releasing him on bail. If not, then he needs to be let go.”— Mo Shaoping, lawyer

The lawyer for a prominent Chinese writer secretly detained six months ago called on authorities yesterday to free his client or formally charge him.

Dissident author Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) was taken away by police on Dec. 8, a day before the publication of Charter 08, a document he co-authored appealing for sweeping political reform in China.

He has not been charged. A rights group says police have been keeping him in a suburban Beijing hotel.

His lawyer, Mo Shaoping (莫少平), said authorities must release or formally charge Liu because China’s criminal law limits the kind of soft detention he has been under to six months.

“Today is the six-month mark,” said Mo. “At the very least, they need to use some other kind of measure to keep him, such as issuing a formal notice of arrest or detention, or releasing him on bail. If not, then he needs to be let go.”

Mo said he will submit a letter to authorities formally arguing for Liu’s release. He said he does not know where Liu is being held.

The San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation said in a statement that Liu was being detained in a hotel in the Beijing suburbs.

Liu, 53, is a former university professor who spent 20 months in jail for joining the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square.

In his writings, most published only on the Internet, Liu has strongly called for civil rights and political reform, making him subject to routine harassment by authorities.

Benefiting from Taiwan’s expertise
　

By W. Andy Knight
Tuesday, Jun 09, 2009, Page 8

After many years of trying to join the WHO, Taiwan was finally allowed to send an observer delegation to the World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting last month in Geneva. Taiwan is not a full-fledged member of the world health body, but it has at last been able to get its foot in the door.

One year ago, I wrote in the Taipei Times that the time had come for the international community to recognize Taiwan as the de facto state that it is, and that the WHO should invite Taiwan “to become a full-fledged member of the global body. Failing that, Taiwan ought to be considered, at the very least, for observer status in the WHA.

I acknowledged then, and still do now, that Taiwan is not yet a de jure state, i.e. it is not recognized by a majority of the international community. However, other non-state entities, in the legal sense, have been awarded WHA observer status in the past, e.g. Palestine, the Holy See, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Even the Sovereign Military Order of Malta was given observer status at the WHA.

So why not Taiwan?

We are all aware that Beijing has insisted since the 1970s that Taiwan is a “breakaway” province of China that ought to be returned to the “motherland.” The government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has used every coercive diplomatic measure, including the threat of the use of force, to deny Taiwan the kind of international recognition that would see it become a member of the family of nations.

China has persistently utilized its “one China” policy to block Taiwan’s appeal for membership in the UN, as well as the WHO and other intergovernmental bodies, from even being included in the UN agenda.

The PRC has maintained that the principles of universality and self-determination — which are entrenched in the UN Charter — do not apply to Taiwan. In fact, the Chinese government refuses to use the name “Taiwan,” insisting on the moniker Zhonghua Taibei (中華台北) — or Chinese Taipei.

Since 1997, the PRC has vetoed every attempt made by Taiwan to join the WHA as an observer. So why did China suddenly choose last month to allow the WHA to grant Taiwan this status?

One answer could be that the election of the pro-China Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) as the new government of Taiwan in May last year, replacing the Taiwan-centric Democratic Progressive Party, created a climate of improved relations between Taiwan and China.

Indeed, since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was inaugurated on May 20, he has tried to make good on his campaign promises to seek better relations with China. We have seen evidence of his conciliatory moves with the opening of direct cross-strait charter flights and cargo, the increase in Chinese visitors to Taiwan, the conversion of the Chinese yuan in Taiwanese banks and the removal of some investment restrictions by the Taiwanese government.

But could there be another reason?

Perhaps even the PRC has come around to recognizing the importance of having Taiwanese public health expertise represented in the world health body, especially since the outbreak of the A(H1N1) influenza.

China, along with Taiwan, is among the 40 countries across the globe reporting laboratory-confirmed cases of the new influenza. After the experience with the SARS outbreak in 2003, the Chinese government seems to have become much more pragmatic about ways to deal with swiftly spreading pandemics.

Perhaps it now realizes that shutting out Taiwan’s highly respected public health expertise from the WHA back then was a major mistake. Note that it was the current Taiwanese minister of health, Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川), who helped expose Beijing’s attempt to keep the outbreak of SARS secret.

Clearly, the PRC is now realizing why some of the world’s leading medical organizations have been calling on the WHO to include Taiwan in the WHA. Taiwan has one of the best public healthcare systems in the world as well as one of the highest life expectancies in Asia.

Taiwan has been successful in eradicating such infectious diseases as the bubonic plague (1948), smallpox (1955), rabies (1959), malaria (1965) and polio (2000). It was the first country in the world to implement a hepatitis B immunization program.

It shares its advanced medical knowledge and technology with several developing countries that have poor or non-existent medical institutions. It has provided medical humanitarian assistance to places like Haiti, Guatemala, Fiji, the Marshall Islands and Kenya.

Thus, valuable lessons can be learned by all UN members from Taiwan’s experience in public health and its response to disease outbreaks and crises. With the outbreak of swine flu, the Taiwanese government also moved quickly to create the Central Epidemic Command Center to contain the spread of the A(HINI) virus across the region.

Pragmatists in China should understand by now that the globalization of disease does not respect jurisdictional boundaries and that there should be no “gaps” in international disease prevention.

The warming of relations between Taiwan and China could in fact lead to mutual vulnerability when it comes to the spread of pandemics like SARS and swine flu. International cooperation to beat back these fast-spreading diseases should therefore come before political posturing.

Let’s hope that this pragmatism prevails the next time Taiwan makes a request to join another UN specialized agency. If the world can benefit from Taiwan’s expertise in the area of public health, it can also profit from its expertise in other areas, such as environmental protection, sustainable economic development, trade and labor standards, educational policy and democratic practice.

W. Andy Knight is a professor of international relations at the University of Alberta.

A living eco-museum for future generations
　

By Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao 蕭新煌
Tuesday, Jun 09, 2009, Page 8

‘If we take action now to protect the ecosystem ... we will leave to future generations a living natural history museum recording our generation’s conscience and good deeds.’

Earth Charter Taiwan (ECT) was formally established on Thursday evening, with Earth Charter International Council (ECI) co-chair Brendan Mackey and ECI Secretariat member Alicia Jimenez in attendance.

The establishment of the ECT is a major boost for efforts to promote environmental education and awareness in Taiwan and should help integrate forces advocating sustainable development in Taiwan with the global environmental movement.

The ECT aims to educate Taiwanese about the Earth Charter and its values. Immediately after its establishment, the ECT held a two-day conference called “Earth Charter and Local Action,” followed by a three-day field trip, giving participants a chance to see first-hand local activities that promote sustainable development.

Reading through the 16 principles laid out in the Earth Charter, one becomes more intensely aware of just how closely the fate of humankind is bound with that of the Earth. What humankind does today will decide what happens to the Earth tomorrow.

The Earth Charter is a strategy for global sustainable development. Starting out from the perspective of respect for life, it calls for preserving the global ecology, as well as establishing social and economic justice through democratic, peaceful and non-violent means.

The Earth today could be viewed as a museum of natural history. Hopefully, future generations visiting this museum will have something better to see than the rubble left by generations of actions that destroyed the ecological balance.

If we take action now to protect the ecosystem and cherish life, we will leave to future generations a living natural history museum recording our generation’s conscience and good deeds.

The struggle to save the Earth faces many challenges, including climate change and natural disasters. It involves issues of cultural and ethnic diversity and national identity. The problems may be global, but they have to be considered and dealt with at the local level.

In another 100 years, when our descendants visit the natural history museum that is Taiwan, will they only see specimens of extinct species? If we want them to see living things rather than stuffed animals and desiccated plants, we will have to take action, such as collaborating with national parks and other civic environmental groups and redouble efforts to educate the public about the environment.

The natural history museum we would like to leave for future generations is not a row of specimens in glass cases, but a living eco-museum. We need to bring nature back into the cities and industries we have been building for the past 200 years or so, to make them ecologically sound, to make them green. That is the living legacy our generation should seek to leave.

Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao is a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology at Academia Sinica.