After a thaw during the Olympics, China's reimposition of censorship on websites run by the BBC and other news organisations is a matter of international concern. The relaxation may have been an opportunistic response to the protests of western journalists, never intended as a permanent change. Web censorship inevitably gets more publicity than China's equally serious internal clampdown on dissent such as Charter 08's call for multiparty elections and the protection of human rights. But this does not alter the fact that China's repressive policies towards bodies such as the BBC and the New York Times are self-defeating and wrong. China's economy has benefited greatly from the free flow of trade. The country has very ambitious plans to use the internet to attract western buyers to purchase Chinese goods directly from domestic websites instead of shops in London and New York. In this way China could capture the profit margins arising from transportation, wholesaling and retailing at considerable cost to western economies.
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