China's Web Crackdown Continues

[Commentary] China is doing its best to remind us that technology can be a tool of suppression, with Beijing recommitting to censoring its large corner of the Internet. China makes no secret of its commitment to censorship. Its minister of public security last month wrote an essay on the importance of control in a Communist Party magazine called Quishi ("Seeking Truth"). Meng Jianzhu said that the country needed to do a better job limiting use of the Web and social media to organize anticorruption and other protests, which now officially number 80,000 a year. "The Internet has become an important means for anti-China forces to engage in infiltration and sabotage," he wrote, urging policies that "give greater prominence to correct guidance of Internet opinion." Censoring the Web is hard for any government. But as China is showing, with enough commitment it can be done.