China is sticking to its planned launch of a controversial Internet censoring software in about one week, an official newspaper said yesterday, despite Washington’s concerns over the move’s possible impact on trade and access to information.
The China Daily said the plan to require the Web-filtering Green Dam Youth Escort software on all personal computers sold in China starting on July 1 remains unchanged, citing an unnamed source from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It is to be pre-installed or included on a compact disc with all PCs sold in China.
The report came amid efforts by Chinese Web surfers to lobby the communist government to scrap its plan and after the US embassy said US diplomats sat down on Friday with officials of China’s ministries of commerce and information technology to express concern and seek more information about the system.
“The US is concerned about actions that seek to restrict access to the Internet as well as restrictions on the internationally recognized right to freedom of expression,” the embassy said in a statement on Monday.
“The US government is concerned about Green Dam both in terms of its potential impact on trade and the serious technical issues raised by use of the software,” it said. “We have asked the Chinese to engage in a dialogue on how to address these concerns.”
Chinese officials say the Internet filtering is an effort to block access to violent and pornographic material. But Internet users have ridiculed the system and some are circulating petitions appealing to the government to scrap it.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm named Trami at 2am yesterday, and is projected to move west-northwest toward waters east of Luzon Island, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Trami’s center was 700km east of Manila, or 1,180km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving in a northwesterly direction. It was carrying maximum sustained winds of 65kph, with gusts of up to 90kph, CWA data showed. The weather agency forecast the center of the storm would be over waters 470km east-northeast of Manila or 820km southeast of Oluanpi at 8am today, and urged ships
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday temporarily shut down the nation’s nuclear energy generation as the state-run utility started regular maintenance on the remaining reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant for 41 days. The No. 2 reactor of the nation’s only active nuclear plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) is set to be decommissioned next year. The No. 1 reactor has been offline since July. The shutdown is to perform equipment maintenance and fuel replacement in preparation for the power plant’s next operating cycle, Taipower said in a statement. With support from other energy sources, Taipower would ensure sufficient power supply
TROUBLED WATERS: The ministers also said they opposed China’s obstruction of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and the militarization of disputed features G7 defense ministers in a joint statement on Saturday singled out China over a number of concerns, including its “provocative actions” near Taiwan. The defense ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US gathered in Naples, Italy, from Friday to yesterday for the group’s first ministerial meeting dedicated to defense. In the joint declaration, they stressed “enduring unity and common determination to address, in a cohesive and concrete manner, security challenges, at a time in history marked by great instability.” In addition to voicing support for Ukraine, expressing concern about the escalating conflict in the Middle East and condemning
BIGGEST TROUBLEMAKER: China should not be carrying out any such exercises given the threat to regional peace and stability, Premier Cho Jung-tai said yesterday The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said that live-fire Chinese drills in a province facing Taiwan are part of routine annual drills, but also possibly part of China’s “deterrence effect” in the waters of the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration, in a notice late on Monday, said an area around Niushan Island in China’s Fujian Province would be closed off for four hours from 9am yesterday for live-fire drills. Niushan sits just south of the Taiwan-controlled Matsu islands. The ministry in a statement said that the exercises are part of routine Chinese training and it was keeping a close watch, but