BEIJING (Reuters) - China's lifting of blocks on the Web sites of several foreign news organizations for a weekend Asia-Pacific summit attended by President Bush proved temporary. They were back in place on Monday.
China quietly lifted blocks on the Web sites of CNN, the BBC and Reuters for meetings of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Shanghai, which culminated in the weekend summit.
Within hours of Bush flying home after the close of the biggest international gathering in China's Communist history, the Web sites were once again accessible only through third party servers located abroad and known as proxies.
China's Ministry of State Security -- widely thought to be partly responsible for blocking Web sites -- was not available for comment. The Internet Security Department of the Beijing Public Security Bureau declined comment.
``It's classic that they put the blocks back on literally when Bush cleared customs to leave,'' said Duncan Clark, managing director of Beijing-based telecoms company BDA China Ltd.
``Part of it is the Big Brother mentality, but I think it is largely symbolic as you can still see the information through proxies,'' he added.
``It is a constant cycle of crackdown and relaxation here, but lifting censorship is probably the last thing the Communists would do before turning their lights out.''
Bush left Shanghai just after 11 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Sunday after a summit dominated by his efforts to win support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism. The block on Web sites run by Western news organizations is not blanket.
Sites such as Yahoo.com and the Web site of the International Herald Tribune have not been blocked. Reuters news is widely available on both. The New York Times site was unblocked several weeks ago, again with no public explanation.
STRICT CONTROLS
China, which guides its main domestic media with a heavy hand, did not unblock politically sensitive sites during APEC.
Those promoting the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, including Clearwisdon.net, remained blocked throughout. China regards the Falun Gong as a threat to Communist Party rule and has labeled the movement an ``evil cult.''
Similarly, media control during the summit was tight, with Chinese viewers only able to watch a delayed and heavily edited version of President Jiang Zemin's news conference with Bush after their first meeting on Friday.
The live television blackout highlighted China's still strict media controls as well as lingering reservations about Bush, who came to office calling China a ``strategic competitor'' instead of the ``strategic partner'' of his predecessor Bill Clinton.
Not even foreign networks carried live coverage of the news conference due to a dispute with state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), which asked for a hefty $8,000 (66,400 yuan) fee to transmit live footage of Bush and Jiang.
Foreign television companies are no longer allowed to use their own satellite dishes to broadcast directly out of China as they did during the Tiananmen protests in 1989.
All footage must now pass through CCTV before being transmitted overseas and reports on sensitive political issues are often interrupted. China is wary about the capacity of the Internet to undermine state-controls.
It boasts more than 20 million Internet users and the number is expected to mushroom in coming years in line with booming sales of personal computers.
Newspapers and magazines are also subject to rigorous censorship.
By strictly limiting the number of gateways to the World Wide Web, Beijing has found it relatively easy to apply blocks.