Extent of block

This firewall is largely ineffective at preventing the flow of information and is rather easily circumvented by determined parties by using proxy servers outside the firewall. VPN and ssh connections to outside mainland China are not blocked, so circumventing all of the censorship and monitoring features of the Great Firewall of China is trivial for those who have these secure connection methods available to them. For a few weeks in 2002, the Chinese government attempted to block Google, but this block was quickly removed, though some features on Google (such as Google Cache) remain erratic.

Research into the Chinese Internet censorship has shown that blocked websites include:

— Websites with pornographic content

— News from many foreign sources, especially websites which include forums

— Information about Tibet independence

— Information about Falun Gong

— Some websites based in Taiwan

— Some websites based in Hong Kong, or with content about Hong Kong

— Overseas Chinese websites such as http://chinese-school.netfirms.com

SOHU.COM

SOHU.COM is China's premier online brand and indispensable to the daily life of millions of Chinese who use the portal for their e-mail, SMS messaging, news, search, browsing and shopping. As China's most comprehensive web site, SOHU offers its users the broadest possible choices regarding information, commerce and community, and, equally important, how they access these products and services. Through its pioneering roll-out of wireless products since 2000, SOHU has become a frontrunner in making the Internet ubiquitously available, whether in the office, at home or on the road.

The web site's massive use base and strong brand presence in China make SOHU.COM, a household name throughout the country, the platform of choice for corporate clients to promote their business.

The Internet in China is an established medium particularly for the urban youth, who are spending more time online at the expense of watching television, making it the most effective marketing vehicle for companies to target this highly attractive segment in the Chinese market.

The Company is quickly realizing its goal of building a sustainable and diversified business model on two strong pillars: a steadfast home-market corporate advertising base and a massive, paying user population.

With over 50 million registered users at the end of September 2002, SOHU has the largest online user base in China. It is a household name among the 300 million people living in urban centers. For the second year in a row the Sinomonitor International survey - the largest Internet Survey in the country- ranked SOHU.COM as the most visited portal in China.

SOHU, with its exclusive focus on the China market, is operating in a high-growth industry under compelling market conditions. The Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII) predicts that the Internet sector will grow to 200 million users by 2005.China's economic growth is expected to remain robust in coming years as the country is opening up further under the terms of WTO membership and preparations intensify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World

TELEVISION

In 1978, China had less than one television receiver per 100 people, and fewer than ten million Chinese had access to a television set. Current estimates indicate that there are now about 25 TV sets per 100 people and that roughly a billion Chinese have access to television. Similarly, in 1965 there were 12 television and 93 radio stations in China; today there are approximately 700 conventional television stations — plus about 3,000 cable channels — and 1,000 radio stations.

China Central Television

China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, or CCTV is the major broadcast television network in Mainland China. Organizationally it is a subministry of the China's central government within the State Administrator of Radio, Television, and Film and as such it does not have any editorial independence from the PRC government.

Its news reporting follows parameters directed by the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China. Most of its programming, however, is a mix of comedy and dramatic programming, the majority of which consists of Chinese soap operas. Like many media outlets in China, CCTV has had its state subsidy reduced dramatically in the 1990s, and hence finds it necessary to balance its role as a government agency with the practical fact that it must attract viewers so that it can sell commercial advertising. In searching for viewers, CCTV has found itself in competition with local television stations (which are also state run) which have been creating increasingly large media groups in order to compete with CCTV.

CCTV first broadcast on September 2, 1958 under the name Beijing Television, after an experimental broadcast on May 1. The name was changed to CCTV on May 1, 1978.

CCTV has sixteen different channels of programming content and competes with television stations run by local governments (such as BTV and several regional channels) and foreign programming which can be readily received via satellite television. Unlike US channel naming conventions, but similar to the situation in many countries in Europe, CCTV channels are listed in sequential order with no discerning descriptions, e.g. CCTV-1, CCTV-2, etc.

Outside China, it is only possible to receive channels CCTV-4 (overseas channel) and CCTV-9 (overseas channel targeted at an English-speaking audience) via a Digital Video Broadcast signal. CCTV has just recently switched from analog to DVB primarily due to better signal quality and the ability to charge for reception (about 10 USD per year subscription). The aforementioned overseas channels are relayed off many different satellites around the world.

CCTV now has 16 channels. They are:

CCTV-1 Mixture

CCTV-2 Economy

CCTV-3 Arts

CCTV-4 International channel in Chinese

CCTV-5 Sports

CCTV-6 Movie

CCTV-7 Children's/Military/Agriculture

CCTV-8 TV drama

CCTV-9 International channel in English

CCTV-10 Science and Technology

CCTV-11 Opera

CCTV-12 Society and Law

CCTV-News -- 24-hour News

CCTV-Children -- Children's channel

CCTV-Music -- Music

CCTV-E&F -- International Broadcast in Spanish and French

Television broadcasting is controlled by Chinese Central Television (CCTV), the country's only national network. CCTV, which employs about 2,400 people, falls under the dual supervision of the Propaganda Department, responsible ultimately for media content, and the Ministry of Radio, Film, and Television, which oversees operations. A Vice Minister in the latter ministry serves as chairman of CCTV. The network's principal directors and other officers are appointed by the State. So are the top officials at local conventional television stations in China — nearly all of which are restricted to broadcasting within their own province or municipality — that receive CCTV broadcasts.

CCTV produces its own news broadcasts three times a day and is the country's most powerful and prolific television program producer. It also has a monopoly on purchases of programming from overseas. All local stations are required to carry CCTV's 7 p.m. main news broadcast; an internal CCTV survey indicates that nearly 500 million people countrywide regularly watch this program.

TALK RADIO

Talk radio in China allows a much freer exchange of views than other media formats. In effect, talk radio has shifted the paradigm from authorities addressing the people to people addressing the authorities. For example, until 1991 the 14 million inhabitants of Shanghai were served by only one radio station — Radio Shanghai — which primarily aired predictable, pro-government propaganda. In 1992, East Radio was established with a format that catered to citizens' individual concerns and deemphasized propaganda. Competition between the two Shanghai radio stations has resulted in much livelier coverage by both — including call-in programs that air discussions of politics, lifestyle, and previously forbidden social subjects. Because callers usually are not required to identify themselves, such discussions are far more candid than would be possible on television. Party officials regularly give guidance to the hosts and producers of talk-radio programs, but such guidance is usually ignored without penalty because party officials do not want to create problems by moving against these highly popular programs.

CABLE TV AND SATELLITES

Residents of the Chinese mainland now receive more than 20 outside television channels by satellite, including Chinese-language services of CNN, Star TV, and the United States Information Agency. In the southern province of Guangdong, 97 percent of the households have television sets, and all — except those in a few parts of the city of Guangzhou where reception is poor — have access to Hong Kong television through cable networks. Some local stations even intercept the signals and insert their own commercials. Beijing is unable to effectively monitor, let alone control, the illicit cable operators who have sprung up since the early 1990s. As of 1995, about 1,000 of the 3,000 cable stations in China, linked to perhaps 50 million homes, were unlicensed.

Satellite dishes in mainland China that pull in programs from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other places are regulated, but government entities such as the Ministry of Machinery Industry and the military services produce such dishes outside allowable quotas and guidelines and then sell them illicitly to eager customers. Efforts by the Ministry of Radio, Film, and Television to halt this practice have been ineffective, mostly because of the large profits involved — up to 50 percent per dish. Indeed, the government has backtracked in its efforts to stop these practices — moving from an outright ban on satellite dishes (1993), to requiring that they be licensed (1994), to specifying allowable programs and viewing hours (1995).

THE ROLE OF “INTERNAL” MEDIA

The Chinese media's internal publication system, in which certain journals are published exclusively for government and party officials, provides information and analysis not generally available to the public. The State values these internal reports because they contain much of China's most sensitive, controversial, and high-quality investigative journalism.

Xinhua and many other Chinese media organizations produce reports for the "internal" journals. Informed observers note that journalists generally like to write for the internal publications — typically, only the most senior or most capable print and broadcast reporters are given such opportunities — because they can write less polemical and more comprehensive stories without having to omit unwelcome details as is commonly done in the print media directed to the general public. A Chinese historian has noted, as an example of such self-censorship, that only a minority of China's population are aware 30 million people starved to death in the early 1960s, because the Party has never allowed the subject to be openly explored in the media.

The Chinese Government's internal media publication system follows a strict hierarchical pattern designed to facilitate party control. A publication called Reference Information (Cankao Ziliao) — which includes translated articles from abroad as well as news and commentary by senior Xinhua reporters — is delivered by Xinhua personnel, rather than by the national mail system, to officials at the working level and above. A three-to-ten-page report called Internal Reference (Neibu Cankao) is distributed to officials at the ministerial level and higher. The most highly classified Xinhua internal reports, known as "redhead reference" (Hong Tou Cankao) reports, are issued occasionally to the top dozen or so party and government officials.

There are signs the internal publication system is breaking down as more information becomes widely available in China. A Hong Kong-based political journal circulated on the Chinese mainland has questioned the need for such a system in light of China's modern telecommunications and expanding contacts with the outside world. Internal publications are becoming less exclusive; some are now being sold illegally on the street and are increasingly available to anyone with money.

Some of the internal publications have changed substantially in an effort to avoid becoming obsolete. For example, the publication News Front — started in 1957 as a weekly tool for the Communist Party to instruct journalists on what to write — no longer was limited to that function when it reappeared after the Cultural Revolution. It continued to change gradually and is now a monthly publication that serves as a professional rather than political guide for journalists.

MARKET COMPETITION

Intense competition for the media market is among the most important factors behind the emergence of more diverse and autonomous media in China. As indicated earlier in this study, efforts by the Chinese media to respond to an increasingly demanding print and broadcast market have created an expanding spectrum of media products ranging from serious news journalism to purely entertainment stories. Monetary rewards for meeting such demands continue to grow, resulting in greater financial autonomy for Commercialization thus has been a major liberating force for the media in China. The regime is far less able than before to wield financial leverage over the media, which have increasingly become self-supporting through advertising revenues and circulation. According to one estimate, advertising in all media forms increased 35-fold between 1981 and 1992. Print ad revenues jumped ten times between 1990 and 1995 — from 1.5 billion yuan to 15 billion yuan.

Television revenues also are growing dramatically: they totaled about $2 billion in 1995 and are expected to rise above $6 billion by 2005. In 1995, China Central Television earned nearly $150 million in advertising revenue, covering almost 90 percent of its total costs. In the past, Chinese radio and television tended to run well behind the print press in their news coverage. More recently, television has come under market pressure to be as timely, informative, and responsive as the print media.

Competition from outside mainland China has further impelled domestic media organizations to become more diverse, assertive, and skeptical of official authority. For example, in order to compete against higher quality Hong Kong radio stations that could be heard in Guangdong Province, Guangdong radio managers created Pearl River Economic Radio (PRER) in 1986. PRER, copying Hong Kong radio's approach, began to emphasize daily life, entertainment, "celebrity" deejays, and caller phone-in segments, while eliminating ideological, preachy formats that included little information beyond what was provided by government sources. By 1987, PRER had obtained 55 percent of the Guangdong market; previously, Hong Kong radio stations had held 90 percent of this market. Local party cadre in southern China reportedly are unhappy about PRER, mainly because some of the station's commentators, as well as its talk radio programs, highlight party failures and the misdeeds of individual party members in the region.

The top national Chinese Communist Party papers (People's Daily, Guangming Daily, and Economic Daily) — which mostly feature party speeches, announcements, propaganda, and policy viewpoints — are steadily losing circulation and much-sought advertising revenues to evening municipal papers that have far more diverse content. For example, People's Daily's circulation fell from 3.1 million copies a day in 1990 to 2.2 million in 1995; the paper's 1994 advertising revenues were down as well. Moreover, its subscriptions consist overwhelmingly of mandatory ones by party and government organizations. Similarly, the Liberation Army Daily has become almost entirely dependent on State subsidies. Its circulation has fallen from 1.7 million in 1981 to fewer than 500,000 at present.

By contrast, the circulation of the Xinmin Evening News, operated by the Shanghai Municipal Government, has risen from 1.3 million to 1.7 million over the same time period. The Guangzhou Daily, owned by the Guangzhou Municipal Government, doubled its circulation in six years to 600,000 in 1994, and its ad revenues also were up.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/

2. http://www.xinhua.com/

3. http://sun.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/

4. http://www.syol.ynet.com/

5. http:// www.sohu.com/

6. http://web.info.com/

7. http://www.chinaview.cn

8. http://www.chinanews.com