| Congressional Commission On China Hearing On “China’S Censorship Of The Internet And Social Media: The Human Toll And Trade Impact” |
December 14, 2011 |
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Christopher Smith, R-NJ
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"The Commission will come to order. I want to welcome all of our distinguished witnesses to this very important hearing. We really appreciate the attendance of all of our panelists and guests. It’s a pleasure to welcome everyone to this important roundtable on “China’s Censorship of the Internet and Social Media: The Human Toll and Trade Impact.” As recent events have shown, the issue of Internet censorship has only grown in terms of importance and magnitude, and I thank the Congressional-Executive Commission on China staff for organizing a hearing on this pressing issue, and for the tremendous scholarly work they have done not only in presenting our annual report, which is filled with facts and information that is actionable, but for the ongoing work that they do to monitor the gross abuses of human rights in China. As the Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s 2011 annual human rights report demonstrates, China’s leadership has grown more assertive in its violation of rights, disregarding the very laws and international standards that they claim to uphold, while tightening their grip on Chinese society. As Chinese citizens have increasingly called for freedoms and reforms, China has only strengthened its controls over many areas of society—particularly over the Internet. While China has witnessed a boom in the popularity of social media and Internet sites, Chinese citizens that access online sites today remain under the watchful eye of the State. By some accounts, China has imprisoned more Internet activists than any other country in the world, and its Internet environment ranks among the most restrictive globally. Chinese citizens are unable to voice a range of criticism that Americans undoubtedly take for granted each day: Chinese citizens that tweet about local corruption may face the threat of abuse or harassment. Citizens that express dissatisfaction over tainted food supplies that injure children—the most vulnerable population of our society—may come to hear a knock at the door. And, citizens that voice the human desire for democracy and rights protections we value so dearly may disappear into the official custody of the State, where they face torture and incarceration. For Chinese citizens, the line that can’t be crossed is unclear. While mentions of the 1989 Tiananmen protests are surely prohibited, China’s censorship remains at the whimsy of governmental agencies that seek to limit what they perceive to be any destabilizing commentary. In China, the Internet provides no transparency—and citizens must weigh their choices each time they click to send an email or press a button or post personal views online. Who can forget Shi Tao, who for merely posting information about what he is not allowed to do, with regards to Tiananmen Square, garnered a ten year prison sentence when Yahoo opened up their personally identifiable information and gave it to the Chinese secret police that lead to his conviction. There are no lists of banned words. There are no registers of prohibited topics. In China, there is no transparency. There are only consequences, and dire ones at that. Today, we welcome two panels that will address China’s Internet censorship from two perspectives. The witnesses will not only provide personal accounts of how China’s censorship affects individuals and families, but also detail how China’s actions hinder the rights of U.S. businesses that seek to compete fairly in China. These panels will expose China’s bold disregard for its own laws and its international obligations, specifically in terms of its controls on internet activity and expression. In the first panel today, we will hear personal accounts of the consequences Chinese citizens face in seeking to express their fundamental rights of expression. We will hear from a son and a pastor that have seen firsthand the anxious and unforgiving hand of China’s Internet police. We will hear how the simplest calls for freedom and reforms can lead to the separation of loved ones and partition of families. In the second panel, we will hear how China’s Internet restrictions and controls not only hurt its citizens, but also hurt countries seeking to better China through international trade and cooperation. On a commercial level, China similarly lacks the kind of transparency and fairness that we expect in global trading partners. China has not only failed to comply with its WTO commitments, it has exploited our expectations to create an unlevel playing field, hurting the competitiveness of U.S. businesses and workers alike. We recognize that the Internet and social media can and should be used to provide people with greater access to honest information and to open up commercial opportunities for businesses operating in global markets. We know that the promise of information technology can not be achieved when it is used by repressive governments to find, capture, convict and so often torture ordinary citizens for voicing concerns publicly. Information technology can not be advanced when it involves the systemic exclusion of commercial competitors and rampant disregard for transparency and intellectual property. China is one of the most repressive and restrictive countries when it comes to the control of the Internet and the impact goes far beyond the commercial losses for U.S. companies that want to participate in that market. There are serious human rights implications and we have seen the damage inflicted countless times through the arrest of bloggers and prodemocracy activists who have used the Internet to communicate with colleagues or disseminate views and then have been arrested. What makes this situation even worse is that sometimes it is U.S. companies, and my colleagues will recall I held the first of a series of hearings where we had Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco, and Google before our committee—it was my subcommittee on human rights—held up their hands and promised to tell the whole truth and nothing but, and then said they couldn’t tell us what they were censoring and would not tell us how they were being complicit. Harry Wu, who is here, and has been a leader on this issue, pointed out that Cisco has so enabled the secret police to track down people using police net, and that the use of cyber police, ubiquitous throughout all of China, in order to capture the best, bravest, and smartest in China, who will bring that country to democracy if only allowed to do so."
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