Demise of The China Century - Orwellian China Shuts Down Century China

Chinese Authorities Shut Down Century China Website

By Xin Fei
Epoch Times Staff

Jul 29, 2006

The Century China website and its chat forum, one of the most
influential websites for Chinese intellectuals and dissidents, were shut
down by Chinese authorities on July 25. As a result, the authorities
have met with continuous protest from the website's editors as well as
Web surfers.

Since its launch on July 19, 2000, Century China had held to its tenet
of establishing a public website for open communication and rational
discussion. The website was founded by the Beijing Zhongqing Future
Community Culture Development Research Institute, and edited by the
Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It
was a comprehensive discussion site for both domestic and international
issues, open to various topics including social, economic, cultural
issues, as well as science and technology.

The Century China website's administrators posted a notice on July 25 to
announce the closedown saying, "Upon notification from the administering
authority, the Century China website (www.cc.org.cn) and its chat forum
(www.ccforum.org.cn) will be closed from today."

At approximately 6 pm that night, the editor of Century China released a
"final day" statement, "Today is the last day for the Century China
website and its forum. At around midnight tonight, they will be taken
permanently offline."

At 9:45 pm, the editor released a goodbye message to the avid readers
and forum surfers, saying "We still don't know the exact time the
website will be shut down, because nobody is willing to carry out a
'voluntary closure.' It might be in the next minute, or it might be
tomorrow morning…… But it won't be very long now."

"In these six years, although we've been through countless trials and
hardships unbeknown to outsiders, in learning to compromise in our
persistence and to persist in our compromising, we've passed through
many moments of crisis. But today, we cannot escape our doomed fate."

" Century China is about to end. But Century China 's articles, readers
and net friends will nonetheless spread her story and history, spread
Century China 's struggle and high-headed spirits. Century China is
dead, but we must live, in the hopes, and let's keep our fingers
crossed, of a beautiful and civilized future!"

Mr. Pu Zhiqiang, a famous Beijing attorney, posted an article the same
evening titled "With Deep Anger and Sadness: Century China Forum is Shut
Down Today". In the article he said, "Although I cannot say for sure
whether the authorities are more serious with supporting the Internet or
suppressing it, it is not hard to see that the authorities now prefer
blockade and suppression to any other means of Internet-based
information management. The existence of these discussion forums and
their persistence in freedom of speech must have annoyed the
authorities. That's why the authorities unwisely decided to shut down
websites like Century China .

"But will these blockage and suppression really work? If I were a
hacker, facing China's Internet domains behind invisible but gigantic
'firewall,' I would surely die to find ways to break it. Except the
'great and honorable' Chinese Communist Party, who else would try being
enemies to all the hackers in the entire world?"

One online posting said, "This is the final craze of a cruel ruler, and
the darkness before dawn."

Another post said, "Many discussion sites and public forums have been
closed by the authorities. Even universities bulletin boards require
registration with authentication. The Chinese authorities are trying to
'instruct and supervise' the speech of the whole society. We Chinese
people have been deprived of freedom of speech, and of the right to be a
free person. Maybe the 'harmonious society' that the communist regime is
trying to build would require an unanimous voice, but I doubt if this
voice will be - as the Party expects - extols, or just moans and curses."

Click here to read the original article in Chinese

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