Absolute freedom does not exist in China. Media and internet are controlled by the Communist Party and their Great Firewall is the largest internet censorship system in the world.
The Great Firewall is a combination of legislative and digital measures enforced my the government of China. Due to these measures Chinese citizens don’t have access to popular apps and websites like Wikipedia, Facebook Youtube and Google Search. President Xi Jingping has set out his own vision for China’s Great Firewall strategy: “We should respect the right of individual countries to independently choose their own path of cyber-development” said Xi warning against foreign interference into China’s internal affair at China’s second world Internet conference in December 2015. Internet censorship in China is coordinated by the Central Cyber Affairs Commission, an internet police force of more than 2 million that monitors and manages content on the Chinese internet.
Many companies and individuals have been punished and arrested for expressing their opinion about topics that the government considers as sensitive (e.g. government criticism, universal values and others). Recent government regulations targeted at Chinese tech giants have decreased the market value of Alibaba, Tencent and other tech giants by a whopping amount 1.3 trillion dollars. The forcibly disappearance of Bejing University lecturer Xu Zhiyong and imprisonment of literature teacher Liu Xiaobo whom both are civil rights activists, are examples of reprimands by the Central Cyber Affairs Commission against individuals expressing their opinions online. The Chinese government actively promotes national propoganda and Xi’s vision of China’s internet and ensures digital content can’t harm the Communist Party in any way.
Amnesty International (2021). Media, internet, persvrijheid en censuur in China. Amnesty International. Retrieved from https://www.amnesty.nl/wat-we-doen/landen/china-informatieplatform/media-internet
Economy, E. (2018). The great firewall of China: Xi Jinping’s internet shutdown. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpings-internet-shutdown
McDonald, J. & Soo, Z. (2021). China tightens political control of internet giants. AP News. Retrieved from https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-media-asia-social-media-6b7083e9bcaa5d093a10b1a40eeef89b
Wang, Y. (2020). In China, the ‘Great Firewall’ Is Changing a Generation. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/01/china-great-firewall-changing-generation
