Your trusted source

China has issued broad new rules for online publishing that formalize the government’s already strict control of the Internet and seek to expand the scope of online content stored inside its borders, The Wall Street Journal reports. 

The new regulations – jointly issued by the ministry of information technology and the publications regulator – ban companies with foreign ownership of any kind from engaging in online publishing, though they allow foreign-invested firms to cooperate with Chinese companies on individual projects, as long as they obtain prior permission from authorities, the international daily newspaper writes on its website.

All content published online – including text, maps, games, cartoons, and video and audio files – must be hosted on servers inside China, according to the rules. The rules are set to take effect on March 10 and require all involved in online publishing to receive a permit to do so.

Many of the restrictions outlined in the new regulations, including the limits on foreign companies, already exist in one form or another, according to analysts. But gathering them together in a single regulatory scheme allows Beijing to cite a legal justification for its intensifying drive to fortify Chinese society, particularly the Internet, against what the authoritarian government sees as unwanted foreign influences, they said.

According to the information, in the past year, Chinese authorities have drawn up regulations and adopted a law that foreign business groups have said could be used to restrict foreign investment in telecommunications and other sectors of the economy and force multinationals to turn over proprietary technology. Regulations adopted last year require technology companies to store data on servers located inside the country.

“China wants to make sure that everything is localized, one as a defense against foreign interference, and two to have jurisdiction to be able to go to these servers and control them if necessary,” an Oxford University scholar Rogier Creemers, who studies Chinese media policy, said as cited by The Wall Street Journal.

The new regulation calls for those who engage in online publishing to “carry forward socialist core values” and spread ideology, morality and knowledge “that improve the quality of the nation and promote economic development.” The rules also ban publishing information that promotes superstition, harms national honor, or endangers social morality, among other negative influences.

Online games received a usual level of attention, said Xue Yongfeng, an analyst with Beijing-based research firm Analysys International, adding that the rules are likely to raise the bar for companies hoping to get into the industry.

“It’s good for regulating the market and the industry and for eliminating unqualified companies, but at the same time it might hurt smaller startups and their innovation,” the WSJ cites Xue Yongfeng saying.

It was not immediately clear how the rules would affect foreign companies like Apple Inc., which runs a version of its App Store in China, or Walt Disney Co., which recently reached a deal with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to offer its DisneyLife content system in China. Neither company immediately responded to WSJ’s requests for comment. Not addressed explicitly by the rules is online publishing by news media. A separate draft regulation under consideration by the Cyberspace Administration of China lists requirements for online news sites. Its provisions would require that news service providers “embrace the core values of socialism and safeguard national and public interests.” Content deemed to violate that and other guidelines would have to be removed upon the regulator’s request, the article reads.

The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and some other foreign news media have set up Chinese-language news websites to cater to a Chinese audience that avidly consumes online news and is eager for varied sources of information. The Journal’s Chinese and English sites are being blocked by Chinese authorities, as are those of the Times and several foreign outlets. Chinese laws and regulations governing the Internet have been selectively enforced in the past, making it possible that some foreign companies could exploit gray areas to continue publishing content in China.

A representative of one U.S. business group in China said its members were paying close attention to the new rules, particularly the data-storage requirements, but that most were waiting to see more detailed implementing regulations expected to come out after March 10. “As of right now, there’s no immediate impact,” the representative said.

Even if the regulations are not strictly enforced, they nevertheless have a strong signalling effect, said Mr. Creemers of Oxford. “This is about saying, ’We are going to have boundaries in cyberspace, we are going to delineate our territory on the Internet and we are going to regulate it however we see fit,” he said.