Internet

China’s crackdowns are getting serious

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In late October, as he pushed to cement his grip on China’s ruling Communist Party for another five years, President Xi Jinping made it clear that with him in charge, the country’s internet wouldn’t be getting more liberal.

At the twice-a-decade National Congress of the Communist Party, during a three-and-a-half-hour speech extolling the virtues of China’s version of socialism, Xi said officials need to engage with the public and pledged to do it on specific terms. “We will provide more and better online content and put in place a system for integrated internet management to ensure a clean cyberspace,” he told more than 2,000 party delegates as he kicked off the weak long assembly. “We will distinguish between matters of political principle, issues of understanding and thinking, and academic viewpoints, but we must oppose and resist various erroneous views with a clear stand.”

Those goals may sound appealing in the era of fake news, but Xi’s first five years have been marked by the biggest crackdown on freedom of expression in the internet age. Foreign companies complain of restrictions that hamstring operations and favor homegrown players. Police are shutting businesses and arresting civilians on message groups as Beijing plugs more holes in its “Great Firewall,” a blockade of blacklisted sites.