China Wants US-Owned Hotels to Censor Internet

jp_papin writes "The Chinese government is demanding that US-owned hotels there filter Internet service during the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, US Senator Sam Brownback has alleged. The Chinese government is requiring US-owned hotels to install Internet filters to 'monitor and restrict information coming in and out of China,' Brownback said Thursday. 'This is an insult to the spirit of the games and an affront to American businesses,' he said. 'I call on China to immediately rescind this demand.' US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said he wasn't aware of those specific requests from the Chinese government, but Brownback said he got the information on Internet filtering from 'two different reliable but confidential sources.' The State Department is apparently continuing dialog with China about freedom of expression."

China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese Law

[samael]

I'm failing to see why this is a shock.

Do these US senators expect Chinese hotels in the US to follow US law? If so, then why the shock?

Following Chinese laws on Chinese soil?

[ozamosi]

So you're saying that the Chinese authorities wants the hotels that operate in China to follow Chinese laws and regulations? Shocking!

Next you're going to tell me that American citizens have their right to bear arms violated when they're in Europe.

skeptical

[quenda]

This is a bit hard to believe. How could the hotels possibly censor any better than the gov't backbones?

And the Chinese have never really worried about foreigners with VPNs. Its the locals that need to be kept in control.

I think this senator got his information from the same reliable sources that found proof for Iraqi WMDs.

seriously...

[night_flyer]

what did the US (and any other freedom loving person) expect when giving the Communist Chinese the Olympics?

On the other hand.

[deniable]

I'm sure the American government has never asked foreign owned businesses to do anything they wouldn't like. I love the smell of politics in the morning. It smells like hypocrisy.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[Anonymous Coward]

The way I see it, someone didn't do a proper business risk review when they made an investment in China, and now they are seeking help because things are not working as they planned.

Their country

[nighty5]

Their rules.

If you don't like it, then leave.

If you want somebody to blame, then direct it to the International Olympic Committee. Each country took a vote and China was selected.

Like or not....

When in Rome...

[flajann]

When in China, do as the Chinese wants you to.
Don't like it? Then don't do business there.

While I don't like censorship in the least, I also don't like US hegemony either -- either by the government or the businesses. China -- its people and its government -- need to work out their own issues with regards to privacy and censorship and freedom of access to information.

Oh well -- China has the US by its financial balls, so all I see coming out of this is a bunch of whining on the US part with little to no real action.

And of course, the question of what form any possible "action" would take, anyway? Pulling out of the Olympics? That's not fair to all those athletes who devoted a good portion of their lives preparing for this event.

Gotta love geo-politics.

Great firewall of China

[weave]

Aren't all of these hotels behind the Great Firewall of China anyway? How are they getting their Internet connections if not? Something doesn't sound quite right about this. I don't see how they can NOT be filtered, even if they didn't want it.

Let's work on freedom of expression here

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's work on freedom of expression in the USA before we go telling China how to run their country. It's sick in this day and age that you can get arrested for flag burning, protesting outside of a "free speech zone", or because you criticize the rulers a little too loudly. Until we fix these things, I think a little Internet filtering in another country is the least of our worries.

welcome to the multi-valued world

[Tom]

No matter how much you dislike the chinese government's position, what this is nevertheless is enforcing rules on them, in their own country. Who cares if the hotels in question are "US-owned"? Would you accept that "chinese-owned" factories in, say, Texas, operate according to chinese rules?

If you start a hotel in China, you know that you're in China, and that chinese laws and customs apply to you. You may not like them, for whatever reason. You may think they are inhuman and evil, but they are the law of the land.

If you don't like it, there's a simple solution: Don't do business there!.

But no, our corporate masters want to have it both ways. None of the large international corporations would want to leave the huge chinese market to the competitors.

I don't support the chinese government in their position on censorship, oppression or the liberal application of the death penalty, but I do support them on their strong stand towards international corporations and anyone else messing with their internal politics. I think right now China is the only government not falling over backwards when some RIAA or Microsoft comes calling, and instead reminding them just who owns the land and the tanks.

Re:Why not pull out our athletes until...

[91degrees]

Because that would be counter productive.

This story wouldn't have come up at all if China wasn't hosting the Olympics. Pulling American athletes out of the games isn't going to harm China, and will make the US look petty.

Many nations boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980. This had absolutely no effect on the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan. It's better to find another way to protest against China that would actually cause some sort of harm.

And in related news....

[r_jensen11]

Dutch MP's are demanding that the US lifts its ban on prostitutes, calling it an affront to capitalism's oldest profession. Film at 11

Re:Following Chinese laws on Chinese soil?

[AndersOSU]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Senator Brownback just wants the internet requests from American hotels to move unimpeded through the NSA operated rooms at the telecoms.

(I'd be much less depressed if I were going for a funny mod...)

What about the censorship right here in the US?

[Eravnrekaree]

It seems rather hypocritical for US politicians to criticize censorship in China when they refuse to do anything to stop censorshop right here in the US and often support it. I am referring to the lack of action being taken on net neutrality and prohibuting corporations from censoring the internet. People think that because its a corporation its not a real threat, but it is. These corporations become de facto governments when they can control so many resources, such as major communications infrastructure, these corporations through their policies can have the same effect as government in effectively limiting free speech.This is why ISPs must be common carriers and required to carry all information over them verbatim.

Sometimes it seems the real reason the politicians criticize china is to cover up the fact that they allow censorship right here, and are representatives of the corporations that carry out this censorship. Politicians in the US take campaign donations from corporations, essentially the corporations elect them and they represent the corporations interest. Whoever has the best funding has the best chance of winning so corporations can control elections through who they give donations to. Add to that most of the US media is controlled by a few large corporate conglomerates who basically can filter and conspire to propogandise the ignorant and gullible public. People are not really the ones making the decisions anymore, the process is controlled by corporations and special interests, the american people are brainwashed into thinking they have a choice, when they really do not. You have a media which basically controls most of their information, and can tell them who to vote for, by excluding or including information you can control the available information they have to work with and thus their decision making. The way you make people think they have a choice is by giving them options, but controlling those options. A politicians campaign can easily be destroyed if their funding is withdrawn and the corporation and establishment can weed out those it does not like (like Kucinich, Paul, etc). The media simply ignores them or gives them a fraction of the attention of other preferred candidates.

Why is this only a big deal now?

[forgotten_my_nick]

News flash for those that don't know. This is old news.

The "westerners" only hotels in China are censored. It is a little less lax then normal Chinese hotels (for example you can watch BBC). But there is censorship and even other rules, for example the only chinese allowed on the hotels premises when I was there had to be working in the hotel.

The censorship is more directed at the population though rather then to external sources.

Lastly it is their country, even if like me you don't agree with this. If you don't like, then don't go to the country.

Re:seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I have known US for a while and I can vouch for what a fine freedom loving chap he is!!

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Re:When in Rome...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh well -- China has the US by its financial balls..."

One could easily swap "China" and "US" in the above statement, and it would still be true. If the American economy collapses, then China will lose their biggest customer. Consider it a form of mutually-assured financial destruction.

Re:seriously...

[sm62704]

Lots of questions, no answers. How ar ethese "US Hotels"? They're on the other side of the globe from the US!

I wish we were as intolerant of the multinational corporations as the Chineese. But then again, Sony and BP and the like all run the US's goivernment anyway, so it's not surprising.

But I wish we, the people still had control of our government. I'd sutre like to see more factories here.

Re:seriously...

[Serious Callers Only]

They've removed lot's[sic] of sites from the Great Firewall of China, for instance the English Wikipedia, after western politicians said that a change like that would reflect well upon China.

This is perhaps true, but seems unlikely frankly. Blacklists in western countries tend to be for hate speech or child pornography, which I find reasonable (though some may not). They are not comparable in scale or subject matter to those in China.

Defending it's people from ethnic cleansing [economist.com] by the Tibet people against the Han-Chinese population

While preventing race riots is an admirable goal, looking at the deeper causes of this conflict is in order. Tibet has been flooded by Han in the last decade as part of a pacification project by the central government. That has understandably lead to widespread resentment there. We'll probably never know the true story because no journalists are allowed to report from that area, I wonder why?

Us Westeners sabotaging the path of the eternal fire, or not preventing Tibet terrorists from doing so, on it's way to Beijing as a way to get back at them for stopping ethnic cleansing isn't exactly helping matters - especially not when it's done by traveling across the world, just to beat up a girl in a wheelchair [wikipedia.org] - because that's usually the best way to get sympathies.

'Westerners' are not some monolithic block to be denounced as ox ghosts and snake demons, and your treatment of the subject doesn't do it justice. There have been no Tibetan terrorists active in the west (taking terrorism to mean violent action against civilians), only peaceful protest - maybe some of that got out of hand, but it's hardly more than rowdy protests. Frankly given your ill-informed comments I doubt you're from Sweden, or you'd know better. Are there even Tibetan terrorists (Race riots are not terrorism)?

To make matters worse, I know the largest Swedish newspapers publish Photoshop jobs (publishing photos of a large group of Chinese polices - but failing to include the even larger group of angry activists next to them) and pure lies (pictures of Nepalese officials treating activists badly, and claiming that they're Chinese) as proof of how evil the Chinese government is.

These are not photoshop jobs, they're unwarranted editorialising (i.e. cropping out protesters) and incompetence (protests in Nepal misused), not evidence of a global conspiracy. If the Chinese government was interested in the truth, they'd open up the province to reporters and allow them to report. I find that far more interesting than any bad reporting in the west (of which there is plenty, along with the good;learn to discriminate).

After this, I have no problems seeing why one would try to limit the access for one's people to these lies - the only thing it would result in is civil war, something that is never good, and would hurt the Chinese process towards giving the people a decent standard of living, freedom of speech, and, eventually, democracy.

While the Chinese people's destiny is their own problem, and I agree this intervention by US Senators is hypocritical given the problems with democratic process and a free press in that country, the Chinese government is not shielding their people from lies, and is actively encouraging xenophobia and stoking nationalism by producing some of the broad caricatures you have so ably aped in your post. The cultural revolution is not so long ago, and we're seeing the same sort of tactics again, but directed outwards toward other nations. If you believe everything you just said I'm afraid you're a pawn in a game between governments.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[Anonymous Coward]

Athletes should be allowed to compete in these games without the interference of political entities. These are the WORLD games. the Protests of Chinese issues that hindered the torch running are a discrace....go protest at the Chinese Embassy..not block the runners. Politics and sports should be like Church and State..keep them seperated.

Re:Their country

[Eravnrekaree]

Not a good argument. For many chinese trapped in china, leaving is not an option. Free speech is a universal and inalienable right of all human beings no matter in which country they live. It is our responsibility, and that of the UN and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,to pressure their government through diplomatic means to make reforms to guarantee, the people free speech and that they will not be punished by the government for what they say.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, this could all have been avoided if the IOC had chosen Toronto for 2008 rather than Beijing. Then we could all have had a nice, predictable Olympics games.

Re:I have but one question...

[proind]

Would the USA have allowed Nazi Germany to host the Olympic games? I DON'T THINK SO.

that's a good one :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Summer_Olympics [wikipedia.org]

Whats the point of the Olympics anyways?

[Sun.Jedi]

Since the issue of net filtering and censorship in China is largely a non-topic, I asked myself why should the Olympics make any difference when discussing individual Countries Law and expecting exceptions to those Laws. In short, what is so great about the present day Olympics?

- Tradition? Seems to me the original spirit of the games has long been lost. It's all about advertising, ratings, and the almighty dollar bill. $10 hot dog, anyone?
- Bragging rights? Aren't there 'World organizations' for this stuff already? Don't the best of the best already compete against each other?
- Excitement? Watching some muscle-head lob a 15 pound aerodynamic (sortof) rock downrange just doesn't have the same pizazz as watching CNN-cam on the front end of a Sat-Killer [news.com]. Ditto on the ice thing with rocks and brooms (not the vulcanized rock [wikipedia.org], the other one [wikipedia.org]).
- Nationalism? If they were proud of their country, why do some come to the USA to get professionally paid [wikipedia.org] only to be shipped back home to wear a different uniform for a few weeks? Seems hypocritical.
- Achievement? Oh joy of joys, yet another feel good story about how a gymnast with a hangnail toughed it out. Compare that to the tanks [sinodefence.com] 'guarding' parking lot, I'm uninspired.
- Pride? My valuable medals [google.com]. 'Nuff said.

Re:Following Chinese laws on Chinese soil?

[cryfreedomlove]

That's an easy little pot shot for you to take from whatever comfortable perch you are posting from.

As for me, I'm against censorship. If China does it then I am against it. If the USA, where I live, does it then I am against it. Injustice by my government, in this case 'NSA operated rooms at the telecoms' does not deny me the right or obligation to speak out against injustice anywhere else. So, I denounce this move by China. Not because they are the 'other team', but because censorship is wrong, period. I also denounce those little NSA rooms at telecoms in the USA, because censorship is wrong.

I'm motivated by justice, not geo political team sport. How about you?

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[Henry V .009]

This isn't a shock. It's called putting pressure on the Chinese to grant basic human rights to their citizens by using the Olympics. Sorry that you don't feel it's important.

Bad Reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen this argument a lot, and it is terrible. It goes like this:

"We expect foreign businesses to follow our rules. Therefore we can't criticize anyone else's rules."

I hope the flaw is apparent. We ALWAYS have the right to complain about nasty rules -- including our own nasty rules! That's right, if we force foreign businesses to do awful things then we SHOULD be criticized for it. Likewise, we have the right and duty to call out other countries when they pull this stuff.

Re:Why not pull out our athletes until...

[Ambiguous Puzuma]

Think of the athletes, particularly ones competing in age-sensitive sports such as gymnastics. It's very uncommon for a gymnast--who likely trained for many hours a day for their entire childhood--to get to compete in more than two Olympics. More than three is almost unheard of (though there are rare exceptions like Oksana Chusovitina).

Taking away one Olympics from these athletes for political reasons would be highly unfair to them.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[rockout]

Unless these hotels are buying direct connections to a provider outside of China (and why would they?)

I dunno, maybe so that their guests who requested unfiltered access to the Internet could get it while they're in China for the Games?

I could easily see media companies getting together and being willing to pay a premium to a willing hotel so that their reporters could have unfettered access to the Internet during their stay. I could also see how China might get wind of this and decide they don't like it.

Re:Following Chinese laws on Chinese soil?

[AndersOSU]

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm motivated by by maintaining civil liberties everywhere. My post was a remark on the hypocritical statement by (the arch-conservative) Sen. Brownback (R-KS) who is outraged by China's censorship but sees the monitoring of our electronic communication here in the US as essential for protecting our freedoms....

As I said, it's depressing.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[CodeBuster]

If there is one thing that reporters really don't like it is having their ability to speak and report freely curtailed. You can bet your bottom dollar that if China follows through with this policy then they will be called out on it by western journalists during the games and reminded of their previous assurances. The 2008 Beijing Olympics are shaping up to be the most politically charged games in a generation, even the Moscow games of 1980 and the subsequent Soviet boycott of the Los Angeles games in 1984 did not draw as much world wide attention and controversy as the upcoming Beijing games have. The Chinese are proving to the world once again that they have a tin ear for international public relations with their handling of the torch relay and the Tibet issue.

Re:seriously...

[sm62704]

can you tell me what sort of government regulation (short of outright nationalization) would have prevented the loss of manufacturing jobs to other countries?

Sure. You could remove all tax breaks from any company building plants elsewhere. You can lay tarriffs. You can pass laws preventing non-citizens from owning all or part of any US business. You can use the "bully pulpit" to name and try and shame owners of companies that move factories overseas.

There is even more that could be done, given the will.

Of course, to do this you would have to have not sold the US government to business interests in the first place, and you would have to tear down the US's national religion (worship of money).

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the very act of a torch relay (not the use of the Torch itself, but the relay) came about as Nazi propaganda for the 1936 Olympics, I think it's a bit short-sighted to say that the political protests surrounding this year's relay are a "disgrace." I think that the athletes should be able to compete all they want, free of political pull, but the relay is historically a political act.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[makomk]

Except for the journalists working for companies owned by Rupert Murdoch (he really doesn't want to upset China - in the past, he's done things like kicking a BBC TV station off a satellite in the region he owns because it's annoying the Chinese government). Then there's the ones working for mega-corporations with interests in China - they'll have pressure on them to not do anything too controversial.

I suspect most/all of the US TV news stations have reasons not to upset the Chinese government. The newspapers won't be quite as bad, nor will non-US news, but it's still fairly significant.

How about a nice boycott

[Ritchie70]

Back when Jimmy Carter was president, a good number of countries boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympic games over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The athletes at the time, as I recall, were devastated.

It would be nice to see some countries put their money where their mouth is (including the US) and boycott the China Olympics.

Not just over this Internet censorship thing; I'm more interested in the fundamental human rights issues than I am in whether they censor the Internet for visiting foreigners. As a basic fundamental principal and statement of support for human rights, events of worldwide importance and recognition should not be held in countries run by oppressive governments.

I assume there's also some sort of preferred trading status between China and the US; that should go too. Why the hell do we need to be flooded with 80 billion tons of poorly made crap? (OK, I just made that statistic up.)

Unfortunately, as so many other posters has said, the US no longer stands for principles and freedom. We stand for profit.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[RiotingPacifist]

Why, the whole Olympics is a political thing, 1990 was the first modern olympic games without anybody not-turning up through protest. Most of the modern Olympic games symbolism is from the 1936 games (a.k.a Hitler propaganda stunt)

Politics & International competitions never have, are not and never will be separate.

Come on bush just grow the balls that Starkozy & even Brown have got and dont turn up to the opening ceremony.

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