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By Wang Zhaokun Stressing Washington's stance on Internet policy as a priority in its diplomacy, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Tuesday that the State Department will soon send messages via Twitter in Chinese. She said in the speech on Internet freedom that while China enjoys strong economic growth, the long-term costs of "Internet censorship" will one day become "a noose that restrains growth and development." The US State Department will award more than $25 million this year to support counter-censorship technology, according to Clinton. Clinton criticized countries such as China and Iran in a similar speech in January 2010. Ni Feng, director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that the speech came against the backdrop of the ongoing social and political unrest in the Middle East, which some say can be attributed to information spread via Twitter and Facebook. Clinton said protests in Egypt and Iran fueled by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube reflect "the power of connection technologies as an accelerant of political, social and economic change." Ni said, "The US obviously sees a strategic value in the situation in the region and hopes to use the opportunity to further promote American values around the globe. The Internet policy is merely a component of the human rights policies of the US government, and whether they will use such policies mainly depends on the development of the global political situation." Jin Canrong, vice director of the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, also said it is a consistent ideology of the US to publicize "freedom of the press." Chinese analysts have criticized the US for applying different standards when talking about Internet freedom within its own borders. |
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