China Bans Access To as Many as 100 Internet Web Sites
From the Wall Street Journal on September 5, 1996
Acting on its threat to control Internet use, China has blocked
access to as many as 100 sites on the World Wide Web, according to
Chinese and Westerners who monitor the industry...
China has shut access to sites in the following five categories
for subscribers of China's commercial network:
- English-language sites sponsored by U.S. news media such as The
Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and CNN.
- Chinese-language sites featuring news and commentaries from
Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province of China.
- Sites sponsored by Hong Kong newspapers and anti-Beijing
China-watching publications.
- Overseas dissident sites, including those providing data on the
restive Himalayan region of Tibet and Xinjiang's independence
movement.
- Sexually explicit sites, such as those sponsored by Playboy and
Penthouse. Some such sites remain unblocked.
Here are some funny paragraphs of an article
from the Wall Street Journal on August 15,1996.
- At the Ocean Palace in Hong Kong, epicures can order from a special
1997 menu. Among the offerrings: a dish made of sea slugs and mysteriously labeled "Happy Returning Day." Restaurant
Tack Hsin offers a 12-person buffet for HK$1,997.
- Considering a sojourn in Hong Kong to watch the historic handover?
Good luck: Hotels that already are booked for the night of June 30, 1997,
including the Peninsula, Regent, Shangri-La, Grand Hyatt, Holiday Inn -
even the Kowloon YMCA!
- Last year, the Hong Kong Government sold a license plate bearing the
numbers "97" at auction for just over $142,000.
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