Published: January 26 2007

China's efforts to "purify" the internet by cracking down on websites such as Google may be as much driven by protectionism as ideology, the founders of the US search engine said on Friday.

"I think a lot of these challenges and policing may be side effects of lobbying by local competitors there," Sergey Brin, Google's president of technology, told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"On a business level, that decision to enter China was a net negative based on our reputation in the rest of the world suffering," Mr Brin added, citing the controversy over Google's decision to censor the Chinese version of its website to comply with the authorities' restrictions.

"I was born in the Soviet Union under communist rule. Having felt that oppression, instinctively, personally you never want to compromise," Mr Brin said.

However, he had changed his views after finding better ways to make Google's service available in China, where it does not store users' personal information, and after talking to Chinese people.

"They actually feel very differently, including those who were in Tiananmen Square. [They are] really proud of what China has accomplished over the past two decades."

Google had not made as much progress as it had hoped in the Chinese market, where it ranks second behind Baidu, Mr Brin admitted.

However, Larry Page, Google's president of products, indicated that Google was not about to pull out of China. "I'd hate for us as a company to make what we thought was the wrong decision in China based on worrying about our reputation," he said.

Google's co-founders argued that it faced similar challenges outside China from discrimination by internet service providers over how their data networks could be used. Unless such networks accepted the principle of "net neutrality", Mr Page said, there would be economic consequences.

"Ultimately we'll pay for it in our productivity".

It was difficult for Google to know whether networks were running slowly because of genuine faults or "because they're supposed to be", he added.

The comments come as Silicon Valley is stepping up its lobbying about net neutrality, with many executives trying to persuade political leaders that it should be treated as a trade issue.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4a7781a4-ad6a-11db-8709-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=7f2c1e2a-91c0-11db-a945-0000779e2340.html

  坚持正确舆论导向，提高舆论引导能力，这已经成了中国官员们时刻挂在嘴边的誓词了。譬如，不再封锁台湾中国时报和联合报网站，也许可以视为一个相关的注脚？

但是还要说一句，信息封闭的时代终究要过去，到了WEB2.0信息化时代，归功于网络以及移动设备传播等新媒体的便利性，新闻议题更加难于事先规划，给信息传播设置障碍也是愚蠢的。

摘录其中关于媒体管理的要点：
 
　　3．准确把握新闻媒体的重要职责，切实改进提高创新舆论引导工作。

　　正确舆论导向是促进社会和谐的重要因素。积极引导社会舆论，形成健康向上的舆论环境，新闻媒体担负着重要职责。六中全会明确提出，新闻媒体要增强社会责任感，宣传党的主张，弘扬社会正气，通达社情民意，引导社会热点，疏导公众情绪，搞好舆论监督。

一是构建社会主义和谐社会需要正确鲜明的舆论导向，要坚持新闻媒体作为党和人民喉舌性质不能变，党管媒体、党管干部不能变，确保新闻媒体领导权牢牢掌握在党的手里。

二是必须走改进创新之路。深入研究新形势下各种受众群体的接受习惯和心理特点，把我们所倡导的和群众所需要的结合起来，从群众的关注点和兴奋点入手，把握好舆论引导的时机、节奏、力度，在报道新闻事实中体现正确导向，在同群众交流互动中促进形成共识，在加强信息服务中开展思想教育。根据媒体分众化、对象化的新趋势，努力构建定位明确、特色鲜明、功能互补、覆盖广泛的舆论引导新格局。

三是必须加强新闻媒体宏观管理。从意识形态领域特点和构建和谐社会要求出发，理直气壮地加强管理，一刻也不放松管理。同时，适应信息传播渠道和媒体格局发展变化，改进管理方式方法，制定完善相关法律法规，建立健全各项规章制度，增强管理的科技含量，做到规范管理、科学管理、依法管理。

　　（本文系中共中央宣传部常务副部长吉炳轩2006年12月2日在全国宣传部长会议上讲话的一部分）人民网－《党建》
 
http://theory.people.com.cn/GB/49169/49170/5327670.html

   转述一个故事：

   某摄制组申请去一北方邻国拍摄纪录片，名曰《睦邻》，一番审批手续下来，他们于2006年10月10日抵达目的地，结果受到该国官员隆重接待——按我个人的猜想，也许就差该国一把手出面接见，因为有传言说，第一把手身体状况令人担忧，所以该国于10月9日释放了一个震撼全球的消息，借此鼓舞国民士气。
   消息称，这个"幸运的摄制组"此时陷入尴尬境地，不但无法坦然享受"举国欢迎"的友好待遇，还面临大后方的指责和压力。他们万万没有想到，好不容易申请到了的机会——到一个闭关锁国的国家拍摄纪录片，到头来落得被指责为组织为国家添乱子"的下场。所有的这一切，都因为"睦邻"这个伟大的词汇擦出了火花。   

    其实我很想安慰一下这个摄制组，毕竟，关于朝鲜，"路边社"类报道太多了，作为新闻工作者不能满足于道听途说，他们确实应该通过亲自考察告诉外面的世界——一个真实的朝鲜，而且世界上也只能寥寥可数的摄制组可能拥有这样的机会。只是朝鲜人太狡猾了，利用了摄制组考察"睦邻"之机，希望向世人传达信息：即便引爆核武器，朝鲜人仍然并不孤立，他们拥有"睦邻"不离不弃的最忠实支持；又或者，即便朝鲜人听到了来自忠实"睦邻"类似"悍然"之官方辞令，他们仍然相信政治资源雄厚的摄制组能把最友好的信息带给"睦邻"，走向世界。

    我只是觉得遗憾，该摄制组为何不能审时度势，将所要拍摄纪录片的名字改为《大国崛起》？这样做，既能反映朝鲜人的骄傲，又能回应世界人民的关注。诸位检索一下各大搜索引擎这一两年的热门词汇，朝鲜必然居于榜单前列。难道这还不是影响力的很好体现么？

    关键词：朝鲜  核试验  CCTV（注：这个主角消息来源没有证实，纯粹个人猜测）  

　　这两天，手机收到许多垃圾短信，有六合彩信息/莫名其妙的乱码，还有色情的网络链接。恼火极了。据说，今年元旦期间清静不少，是因为信息产业部要求服务商强行清理SP服务，但是一阵整顿的政策风过去，无良SP再次席卷重来，看来，那么多SP不捞够过年的红利，绝不会善罢甘休。
　　听业内人士说，以前广州移动管理较为严格，所以他们的主战场选择东莞这样的二线城市，只要移动工作人员睁一只眼闭一只眼，他们就可能群发订阅短信，从普通打工一族那里捞钱，不仅是因为这些人维权意识差，而且他们使用的神州行等预付费品牌要核查话费并不容易。
　　而今呢？3G尚未投入商用，新的商机遥遥无期，而SP现有的招数已经臭名昭著，他们大概是上演最后的疯狂？中国移动一年纯利润可以拿到300亿元的真金白银，远远超出其他几家电信营运商的盈利总和，所以他们跟媒体打交道也底气十足，只要媒体胆敢对中移动有半点非议，他们立刻威胁停广告——想一想吧，一家主流的日报媒体，中移动每月投放广告额可能达到上千万元，这种广告封杀绝对有效。
　　毕竟，内地没有黎智英这样的媒体角儿，他的《苹果日报》可以在李嘉诚家族企业广告封杀的环境中生存下来——香港已经被称为"李嘉城"了，黎的勇气和担当，确实值得赞赏。

The One-child Policy Has Succeeded in its Goals

But With Unintended Consequences

By Deng Zhixin

Editorial Department Senior Editor, Southern Metropolis Daily

Guangzhou, China

A Chinese blogger based in Shanghai, Wangjianshuo, encountered a serious discussion on China's one-child policy recently. It was raised by an American businessman, Peter, who said the fact that China now has the world's worst demographics complicates his decision of whether or not to invest in China. A business consultant made the point at some business conference that China's one-child policy comes at enormous social cost: the birth rate has fallen below replacement, causing a rapidly aging population with too few young workers to support the senior citizens. To make matters worse, China is getting old before getting rich. Moreover, he said that due to the one-child policy, China now has a massive excess of boys to girls, which can lead to wars in later decades. He said that due to the one-child policy, China would probably suffer a massive economic collapse by about the year 2025.

"Don't worry about this problem," responded Wangjianshuo. Mr. Wang explained the policy in his personal way: The policy is not strictly enforced as the foreigner imagines. Chinese parents living in urban areas can find ways to pay the fine required if they decide to have a second child. China has much bigger problems than this. However, there are the right people thinking about solutions.

He did point out two issues hotly discussed by the public: the phenomenon of spoiled only children, or "little emperors" and the aging society.

Actually, Mr. Wang shares a view in common with the Chinese public. Two and half decades have passed since the adoption of the one-child policy and a whole generation of singletons is reaching adulthood. This family planning program was not implemented nationally until the end of 1977. The priority of the new regime was modernization, with greater investment in women's education and a better-educated populace; the huge population was becoming a burden in the development process. Some observers also ascribed the one-child policy to a reaction to the famines of the 60's and projections that China wouldn't be able to feed itself by 1990 if growth continued at previous rates.

The only-child, once called "little emperor" or "empress," does invite concern from time to time in that without a brother or sister, he/she won't have a sense of fairness, and it will affect his/her social growth. Nevertheless, some argue that criticisms by elders of the younger generation are just due to a generation gap, which has always existed between generations. Since the "lost generation" still brings out a prosperous America, why bother to criticize the up-coming generation?

But there is something the only-children do regard as unbearable: that they are expected to be the primary providers of support and care for their retired parents, grandparents, and parents-in-law, and only a very lucrative position will allow them to provide for so many dependents. Many only-children aspire to elite status even though few can attain it, and such aspirations lead to increased stress and competition, as well as intense parental involvement.

This rapid aging is not only accompanied by China's relatively low per capita income but also by its state-owned enterprises restructuring and rebuilding their pension systems. According to the United Nations' projection, China's working age population will reach its peak at 1 billion in 2015 and begin to fall afterwards. Since a great part of China's growth has come from its abundant labor supply, the forthcoming labor shortage implies the diminishing of its growth source.

In 2005, the government claimed that China's one-child policy had successfully reined in its population growth and helped prevent 300 million births—about the size of the U.S. population—delaying China's arrival at the 1.3 billion population mark by four years.

Nevertheless, despite the ever-repeated declarations from the authorities that birth control was implemented on "a voluntary basis," what makes it so notorious is the coercive means officials used to enforce it and the countless cases of infanticide and abortion. Moreover, the political pressure generated by a 1991 policy that linked birth control achievement to cadre evaluation has not only encouraged local officials to compete for lower birth rates within their jurisdictions, but also resulted in false statistics that have corrupted the nationwide birth reporting system.

Finally in 2000, the birth planning policy was written into law (PRC's Law on Population and Planning), making a shift from relying purely on administrative coercion to an emphasis on service provision. The policy itself was fine-tuned as well, to better reflect contemporary social patterns. For instance, the state allowed single-child husbands and single-child wives to have two children between them.

According to these policies, the majority of Chinese couples in urban and some rural areas, 63.1 percent, can have only one child; 35.6 percent in rural areas can have two children; and 1.3 percent, members of minority groups, can have three children.

Beginning in 2002, couples were allowed choice in contraceptive methods as part of so-called client-centered family-planning services. Furthermore, couples no longer had to obtain permission to have a first child, a move that spelled the end of the very unpopular system of local birth quotas, which meant that couples were forced to delay pregnancy if the local quota was exceeded. These changes, together with declining fertility aspirations, have reduced, though not eliminated, the tensions associated with the government's efforts to control population growth and have allowed the government to adopt a cautious and gradual approach to relaxing the one-child policy.

While the state encourages late marriage and childbearing, and the spacing of children in cases in which a second child is permitted, and gives financial incentives and disincentives to nudge families into complying with the birth planning policy, this is a more relaxed, suggestive way of controlling citizens' reproductive lives.

The National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) sets the overall targets and policy direction. Family-planning committees at provincial and county levels devise local strategies for implementation. A so-called "social compensation fee" for violating the one-child policy was introduced after the law was written in 2000, equaling about four times a couple's annual income. Actually, the amount of the fine varies in different areas, thus creating yet another ideal setting for bribery, personal violence, intensified destruction of privacy and general corruption.

Last year, officials initiated a forced abortion (two women claimed it happened just days before their due dates) and sterilization campaign against women in Shandong province. A blind rights activist, Chen Guangcheng, stepped out to confront local officials and filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf.

Unreliable as the birth reporting system may be, the remarkable increase in the sex ratio is another factor that could bring down the one-child policy in China. In the population group aged 0 to 4, the gender ratio was 110 males to 100 females in 1990, 120 in 2000, and 123 in 2004. What happened to all the missing girls is a matter of speculation. Sex-selective abortion after ultrasound undoubtedly accounts for a large proportion of the decline in female births. Some have argued that the gender imbalance is not as serious as official statistics indicate since lots of parents fail to register the births of female babies. Still, the shortage of women may increase mental health problems and socially disruptive behavior among men and leave some men unable to marry and have a family.

In various places in China, the Government has launched a "Care for Girls" program. The aim is to eliminate cultural discrimination against girls in rural and underdeveloped areas through subsidies and education.

Last December on the eve of Christmas, a seminar entitled "21^st Century Population and Economic Development in China" was held in Beijing. Some renowned Chinese demographers and economists met for the first time with NPFPC officials for face-to-face discussion on possible relaxation of the one-child policy.

This important meeting was closed to the public and the media and the report was not issued until August of this year. The scholars argued that the target national fertility level as stipulated by local policies is 1.8, well below the replacement level of 2.1, and called on a proper readjustment of the policy. They pointed out that a reasonable population structure is now more important than the pressure brought by population growth, justifying a change in the current policy of one-child-per-couple to a policy of two-children-per-couple.

Professor Zeng Yi from Peking University was one of those preaching readjustment for the coming aging society. He suggested that women should be allowed to have their second babies at an age between 32 and 34, with a space of at least five years between births. According to Zeng, his proposal may help slow down China's pace into an aging society and postpone the arrival of a population peak of 1.48 billion people to the year 2038.

Zeng's proposal has aroused objection from some Chinese scholars and officials. Renowned Chinese economist Fan Gang said a relaxed family planning policy in China would lead to an additional population of 100 million or 200 million, a big challenge to employment. This is another of China's demographic dilemmas.

The emergence of a labor market that rewards human capital has clearly intensified the desire and competition for more and better schooling for children. Employment in urban areas has increased economic risks among adult Chinese, and posed serious concerns for parents planning for their children's economic livelihood. More family patterns have emerged these days such as single, DINK and divorced couples without children. What's more, as an official from NPFPC, Yu Xuejun, pointed out, the families with no children, including couples unable to give birth, increased from 1 percent in the 1980s to 8 percent today. He warns that continuous decline in Chinese fertility may pose a serious threat to future development.

But the government feels that vigilance is still essential. It is feared that any wavering in implementation of the policy may compromise the goal of keeping the population below 1.4 billion by 2010, as outlined in the government's 15 ^th five-year plan, which in turn could threaten economic growth and stability. There are particular concerns about the increasing level of migrants, estimated to be 300 million by 2020, from rural to urban areas, which complicate the unemployment issue. Population migration has made monitoring and controlling birth more difficult. The authorities are undertaking an information network project for women of childbearing age, which requires collaboration among various departments such as the police, the revenuer and business administration, to pay special attention to population migration.

Furthermore, relaxation of the policy can be considered only if fertility aspirations are such that a baby boom will not result, although there is now good evidence that China is becoming a small-family culture. For example, migration has exposed many to the urban consumer culture and the urban low fertility environment. On the other hand, it is held that most Chinese parents stick to the traditional doctrine that "Many children means much happiness: early children means early happiness" (Common saying attributed to Confucius).

Nowadays, increased wealth and freedom also make it harder for the government to enforce the policy. Economic disincentives are not a deterrent to many wealthy people, and increased freedom of movement has made it difficult for family-planning authorities to track down people if they choose to flout the regulations.

Professor Mu Guangzhong, a specialist in population sociology at Peking University, is among those calling for population policy readjustment. He argues that instead of a focusing on individual human lives, too many government resources concentrate on the numbers. The only-children's parents may suffer a lot since the only-child may not become financially successful, or may encounter an unfortunate accident. Either way, only-children families are put into high-risk situations which can lead to social instability. It is time to give back the people's basic reproductive rights.