China keen to keep lid on crisis coverage

AS HUNDREDS of Chinese nationals were flown out of Cairo yesterday to be brought home to Beijing and Guangzhou, the Chinese government…

AS HUNDREDS of Chinese nationals were flown out of Cairo yesterday to be brought home to Beijing and Guangzhou, the Chinese government insisted that web access remained open, despite blocks on discussion of Egypt’s situation on blogs and websites.

“China’s internet is open,” government spokesman Hong Lei said when asked if Beijing was clamping down on web searches in the wake of a week of protests that left many people dead and President Hosni Mubarak last night clinging on to power.

“Egypt is a friend of China. We hope Egypt will restore social stability and normal order as soon as possible,” he said, reiterating his remarks from previous days.

While his comments are in many ways similar to those made by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, China’s approach to the tumult in Egypt is very different.

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Beijing is wary of contamination by ideas that street protests can force regime change and is keen to keep a lid on untrammelled coverage of Egypt.

Most of the comment on the Egyptian situation has been in line with the Global Times editorial of earlier this week, which said: “Colour revolutions will not bring about real democracy.”

Instead of dealing with the protests and the crackdown in formal terms, its focus has been on the positive aspects, or potential solutions, such as an offer by newly appointed vice president Omar Suleiman for talks with opposition parties.

China has 457 million internet users but few will have been able to access much hard news about the Egyptian crackdown. Searches on various micro-blogs, such as Sina.com, Netease.com and Weibo produced either no results or error messages.

Beijing actively censors any content that is seen as a potential challenge to single-party rule by the Communist Party.

The government is careful about monitoring the information flow on the internet particularly at a time when there is growing public dissatisfaction about various issues such as rising inflation, widespread corruption and increasingly, environmental disasters.

During the colour revolutions in eastern Europe 10 years ago, China kept a similarly tight grip on the flow of information, fearful of contamination.

The focus instead has been on the evacuation plans and the good-news aspect that is getting Chinese nationals home safely.

“China has attached great importance to safety of the stranded Chinese nationals since demonstrations and protests broke out in Egypt on January 28th,” said Mr Hong.

China’s economic strength means that while there are dissenting voices, and plenty of curiosity about what is going on in Egypt, most Chinese seem happy with the status quo as they are richer and lead better lives than before.