Houston Community News >> China President Hu Vows to Purify Internet
1/24/2007 BEIJING -- Chinese
Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has vowed to "purify" the Internet, state media
reported on Wednesday, describing a top-level meeting that discussed ways to
master the country's sprawling, unruly online population.
Hu made the comments as the ruling party's Politburo - its 24-member leading
council - was studying China's Internet, which claimed 137 million registered
users at the end of 2006.
Hu, a strait-laced communist with little sympathy for cultural relaxation, did
not directly mention censorship.
But he made it clear that the Communist Party was looking to ensure it keeps
control of China's Internet users, often more interested in salacious pictures,
bloodthirsty games and political scandal than Marxist lessons.
The party had to "strengthen administration and development of our country's
Internet culture", Hu told the meeting on Tuesday, according to the official
Xinhua news agency.
"Maintain the initiative in opinion on the Internet and raise the level of
guidance online," he said. "We must promote civilized running and use of the
Internet and purify the Internet environment."
In 2006, China's Internet users grew by 26 million, or 23.4 percent, year on
year, to reach 10.5 percent of the total population, the China Internet Network
Information Center said on Tuesday. The vast majority of those users have no
access to overseas Chinese Web sites offering uncensored opinion and news
critical of the ruling party. But even in heavily monitored China, news of
official misdeeds and dissident opinion has been able to travel through online
bulletin boards and blogs.
Hu told officials to intensify control even as they seek to release the
Internet's economic potential. "Ensure that one hand grasps development while
one hand grasps administration," he said
(Contributed by Newsmax.com)