Can the Internet Free China?

• Author: ECKHOLM, ERIK

WEB SITES AND E-MAILS ARE CRACKING CHINA'S GREAT WALL OF CENSORSHIP--A REVOLUTION THE GOVERNMENT SEEMS POWERLESS TO STOP

In a nondescript office in Washington, D.C., Li Hongkuan, 35, leans over his laptop, clicks SEND, and launches another strike against China's Communist government 7,000 miles away. His weapon: an e-mail newsletter that will hit a quarter million computer screens in China, bypassing Chinese government censors. Filled with news on human rights, democracy, free speech, and criticism of the government, the newsletter, VIP Reference, showers Chinese citizens with stories the government wants to keep secret.

Li's stated goal: "We are destined to destroy the Chinese system of censorship over the Internet."

So far, that's exactly what he's doing.

China's Communist government has always suppressed dissent through strict control of the media--including TV, radio, newspapers, and books. But as China prepares to celebrate 50 years of Communist rule on October 1, the government's iron grip on information faces its greatest challenge ever. Li, and hundreds of thousands of people within China, are using the Internet to spread news, share ideas, and even to join together in protest. For now, the government seems powerless to do anything about it.

"The impact is revolutionary," says Xiao Qiang (shou chang), executive director of Human Rights in China, a pro-democracy group based in New York City. "The Internet has created a public space for discussion, which China has never had. The whole foundation of Chinese government control is being chipped away at a very fast speed, and over the next five years, there's no way they can stop it."

Certainly, the government has tried. China's security agencies have formed special units to combat the spread of dissident information. And the government uses an electronic "firewall" to block access to Web sites it deems objectionable. But it cannot keep up with new sites, and clever computer users can sidestep the firewall. E-mail is virtually uncontrollable. VIP Reference, for instance, is sent from a different American e-mail address every day to prevent blocking by government censors.

OLD-FASHIONED INTIMIDATION

As a result, the government has fallen back on pre-Internet methods of intimidation. Last year police in Shanghai arrested a 30-year-old computer engineer named Lin Hal and charged him with "inciting subversion" of the government. His crime? Selling 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to the VIP Register. In January, judges socked him with a two-year prison term, a sentence many saw as a warning to others.

Lin says he had no...