A Stitch in Haste

Feel free to make as much money as you want in China's so-called "capitalism zones," just don't tell anybody about it:

A Chinese court has convicted an online journalist on subversion charges and sentenced him to seven years in prison — the third such case this year, a court official and a reporters' advocacy group said Friday.

Zheng Yichun was convicted on Thursday said an official at the Intermediate People's Court in Yingkou, a port city in northeastern China's Liaoning province. The official, who would give only his surname, Ma, said he was not able to give any details.
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Although China's leaders encourage the use of the Internet for business and education, authorities use vaguely defined secrecy and subversion laws to silence critics and perceived political opponents.

And please no false analogies to Judith Miller. She is in jail not for anything she said or wrote, but for contempt of court. And we don't get information about her status from prosecutors or judges who only give their first names.

This is naked, brazen censorship and a flagrant human rights violation. And the Chinese are really good at it — Reporters Without Borders describes China as the "World Champion" of Internet censorship.

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Meanwhile, China has decided that these "one subversive at a time" imprisonments are just too clumsy and inefficient for a modern dictatorship, so they're opting instead for a more "economies of scale" approach:

China said Sunday it is imposing new regulations to control content on its news Web sites and will allow the posting of only "healthy and civilized" news.
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The subjects that would be acceptable under those categories was not clear. ... "The sites are prohibited from spreading news and information that goes against state security and public interest," [the official Xinhua News Agency] added.
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Authorities in Shanghai have installed surveillance cameras and begun requiring visitors to Internet cafes to register with their official identity cards.

Shanghai, meanwhile, is one of those token "market zones" that are supposedly part of China's "economic miracle." With miracles like this, who needs a curse?

China and its apologists like to pretend that China's "market communism" is just another form of true capitalism. Well, what might a capitalist call this crackdown on all newsflow?

Oh right — "wholesale" censorship.

Other thoughts at Samizdata, Daniel Drezner.