China Cracks Down On Media

China Reform Monitor reports that China's crackdown on the media shows no sign of abating. The Agence France Presse reports that latest casualty is the internet search engine firm Google, which has agreed - following pressure from the PRC - to have its Chinese language site (Google.cn) operate within limits set by the Central Propaganda Department. Google joins fellow U.S. firms Yahoo! and Microsoft in bowing to Beijing's pressure.

 

Just days earlier, the Central Propaganda Department had also ordered the closing of Bing Dian, an influential weekly newspaper that tackles touchy political and social subjects. In an open letter to the Chinese-language Hong Kong Ming Pao, Li Datong, editor of Bing Dian, bemoaned Beijing's "parochial view, narrow-mindedness and autocratic and arbitrary methods of work."

 

Jia Qinglin, the number four official in the hierarchy of the Communist Party of China (CPC), has warned the nation's religious leaders to guard against foreigners using religion to "infiltrate" China, the People's Daily reports. Speaking to China's state-run religious affairs bureau, Jia said that "religious affairs work must be established within the overall work of the party and state and must completely obey, serve and develop under this task." Jia called on religious affairs workers to "fully withstand foreign forces using religion to infiltrate (our country) in any way and safeguard state security and social stability."