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."

"Reliable but confidential" sources?

[plover (150551)]

A senator quoting "reliable but confidential" sources on the internet? It's most likely from his pal, the Nigerian Prince, and also that nice wife of Mbutu Seke-seke. I've gotten reliable but confidential email from them, too, but they asked me not to talk to anyone about it.

Re:"Reliable but confidential" sources?

[Thanshin (1188877)]

The summary would be slightly clarified by replacing "on" with "about":

I disagree:

The Chinese government is requiring US-owned hotels to install Internet filters to 'maboutitor and restrict informatiabout coming in and out of China,' Brownback said Thursday. 'This is an insult to the spirit of the games and an affraboutt to American businesses,' he said. 'I call about 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 about Internet filtering from 'two different reliable but caboutfidential sources.' The State Department is apparently cabouttinuing dialog with China about freedom of expression."

China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese Law

[samael (12612)]

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?

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[by 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.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

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

Hell, a lot of hotels in the U.S. aren't even owned by U.S. companies, their owned by the Japanese. That's true, at least, of every single hotel in Hawaii.

Of course we expect these hotels to operate in accordance with U.S. law. Of course, the thing is that the Japanese tend to always seek excellenece in their endeavors -- and, in their view, excellence includes strict compliance with the law.

OTOH, many hotels owned by American companies and individuals don't operate in accordance with U.S. law -- cleanliness standards that aren't up to state and federal health codes, employing undocumented workers as housekeeping staff.

So uhh...what is it they're screaming and handwaving about again?

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[Yvanhoe (564877)]

The shock comes from China's promise to bolster freedom of expression and human right during the Olympic Games when Beijing was chosen a few years ago.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[alan_dershowitz (586542)]

Why is this marked funny? Back in 2001 during their Beijing hosting bid, China promised precisely NOT to do this. They also promised total freedom of movement and reporting for international press, which they have also broken (see: Tibet.) China is hoping you all have short memories, but I forget nothing. I wish I could link to a news article with all the stuff they promised, but going back that far most sites charge for access.

Re:China wants hotels in China to follow Chinese L

[CodeBuster (516420)]

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.

skeptical

[quenda (644621)]

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.

Re:skeptical

[spooje (582773)]

Most filtering isn't done at the backbone level, it's done at the small ISPs that are located in the major apartment complexes. The government gives them directives and it's up to them to impliment them. This is why some complexes will have access to sites (like wikipedia) while others in the same city won't.

Re:skeptical

[audunr (906697)]

While visiting an Internet cafe in China, a friend of mine used her university VPN connection to be able to browse sites that her university has subscription access to. Some time later, a guy comes into the cafe and asks her to leave. Politely, but still, if the reason was her VPN use then that's really, really scary. And probably happens every day...

seriously...

[night_flyer (453866)]

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

IOC is not US or "any other freedom loving person"

[Per Abrahamsen (1397)]

IOC doesn't even pretend to care about freedom. All they care about is money, while pretending to care about sport. [ Quite unlike the US, which only cares about money, while pretending to care about freedom. ]

Re:seriously...

[Serious Callers Only (1022605)]

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.

Why not pull out our athletes until...

[mikelieman (35628)]

Why not pull out our athletes out of the games until China adopts a default policy of Freedom and Liberty?

Fuck that Censorshit!

I'll take good old US Style Blanket Surveillance any-day!

Thanks AT&T! For keeping us safe by spying on us for the Bush Gang -- even if it is completely unlawful to do so!

Happening already.

[martin-k (99343)]

How is that different from what's happening now? I stayed at the Hilton in Beijing (supposedly property of an American company) last year, and they of course filtered the net connection. No boobie pages, some political pages didn't work; even SSH connections were impossible for one whole day during my stay.

Newsflash!

[johannesg (664142)]

In China, even *Americans* must obey Chinese law! Gee, who would have thought?

Don't like it? Your options are:

1. Don't do business there.
2. Ask them to change their laws. Good luck with that.
3. The Iraq thing. Good luck with that too.

A hotel is not an embassy; Chinese law applies within its walls.

welcome to the multi-valued world

[Tom (822)]

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.

What about the censorship right here in the US?

[Eravnrekaree (467752)]

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 (802929)]

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.

Wow, this is hypocritical!

[Richard_at_work (517087)]

In February 2006, the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton hotel (a franchise of the Sheraton group) in Mexico City was ordered by the US Treasury Department to throw out a group of Cuban officials who were staying there, because their presence violated US law and the Sheraton Group was an American company. In complying with the requirement, the hotel broke local law and faced $500,000 fines before the situation was smoothed over.

Re:Following Chinese laws on Chinese soil?

[AndersOSU (873247)]

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...)

Re:Following Chinese laws on Chinese soil?

[cryfreedomlove (929828)]

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:The Original Press Release

[OS24Ever (245667)]

Having grown up in Kansas and voted against him every chance I had I don't like the guy, and the company he keeps.

That being said..

one of his children is adopted from China. he puts his money where his mouth is sometimes, and I respect him for that sometimes.

But ...

Just look at his voting record. He's voted to force the installation of the same software China wants to use. It seems extremely hypocritical and headline grabbing move to me, instead of something true.

We are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave, and that's the way it is and we like it apparently, because no one will make any effort. We like being the land of the monitored and home of the scared. It's not a big deal, and it's to stop the terrorists.

China's doing it because they're mean. We're doing it to protect you, so we're ok. That's the politicians logic for you.

Re:What would be cool is

[Phybersyk0 (513618)]

This isn't too likely as many Chinese still do not own personal computers. Many obtain their access to the net via internet cafes. If you get your access at a cafe it kinds sucks because you are required to prove that you're 18 or older, which means you must present identification, which is recorded with the workstation you use and subsequently the IP address and time in which you used it.

For home access in larger cities like Shanghai, adsl is the way to go, and you purchase time, and you get a static IP. Also traceable to you.

I was in China for a couple of weeks immediately following the recent Tibet fracas (which is quite perplexing if you listen to all 3 sides of the discussion).

Based on my personal observation, The "Great Firewall" isn't so much a firewall (which in my eyes connotes address/port blocking) but it's more the corporate content filter. Too many keywords and your transmission gets squelched.

Example: The first day I tried to use myspace.com and I couldn't get a single word to load. The next day, Myspace would load, I could log in, but when I selected the option to update my personal Blog, I got half a page of unrendered HTML code. I didn't even bother after that.