Beijing’s retreat on its latest Internet-censorship effort highlights the rise of China’s increasingly tech-savvy, vocal public as a factor in the authoritarian government’s decisions.
China gave in late Tuesday to complaints by Web users, manufacturers and foreign governments and postponed a plan to require producers to supply a government-endorsed filtering software known as Green Dam with every personal computer sold in China.
“We think this is a result of the efforts of all the parties, but we think public opinion played an even more important role than the others,” said Edward Yu, president of Analysys International, an Internet research company in Beijing.
The retreat marks another significant shift for a Communist Party that is used to being the final voice in official decisions but is learning to accommodate a public that is growing more assertive as living standards rise.
One of the more vocal campaigners against the filtering software, avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei, threw a party at a Beijing restaurant Wednesday to celebrate. Guests wore T-shirts with slogans cursing Green Dam and the “GFW,” or Great Firewall, the nickname of the government’s extensive system to monitor and filter Internet traffic.
Ai said he wanted July 1 declared Internet Day as “a reminder that no one should violate the right to free access to the Internet.”
Though the Chinese leadership remains as determined as ever to crush challenges to its authority, it also knows that staying in power means keeping in touch with public attitudes and key interest groups.
The government polls relentlessly if quietly. It monitors comments on the Internet from China’s nearly 300 million Web users. Sometimes the government alters decisions — like it did with Green Dam.
“This is a milestone in the growing role the broader public has in forming policy decisions,” said David Wolf, president of Wolf Group Asia, a technology marketing consultant in…