Berlin wall - Chinese style

Cartoon internet police officers respectively named 'Jingjing' (R) and 'Chacha' are displayed with actual internet police officers who censor the internet for anything the CCP does not want citizens to know (China Photos/Getty Images)

On 3 November 2009, Reporters Without Borders criticized Chinese authorities for blocking the website known as "virtual Berlin Wall".  Mr Wu Fan, a commentator on current affairs on New Tang Dynasty Television, gives a more detailed account of this matter.

Mr Wu pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wished to block all sorts of information that would lead to the fall of its dictatorial rule. It tried to construct a Chinese-style cyber-equivalent of the  Berlin Wall by means of Golden Shield and the Great Firewall of China.

The website “virtual Berlin Wall” was set up to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The site has been blocked by the Chinese authorities since it opened on 20 October. Mr Wu believes that the Berlin Wall symbolizes the autocratic Communist tyranny and the denial of freedom and democracy.

Wu said, “The Communist Party fears the awakening of the Chinese people, and so it has to block the site. You can see that the Party is in fear of anything that would lead to its fall."

Wu pointed out that due to censorship most Chinese people do not know the history of the Berlin Wall, its story and its significance. “People who know the history are not allowed to talk about it. The Party has determined to build a larger ‘Berlin Wall’, a Chinese-style Berlin Wall to shut people up.”

Chen Xi, a democracy activist from Guizhou, believes that anyone who knows Internet technology will find ways to break the Chinese blockade.

Chen said, “We should break this ‘fundamental Berlin Wall’ that divides Chinese people from the international community, so that the oppressive behavior engaged in by the Chinese Communist Party to continuously ravage the people will be stopped.”

Since the opening of the "virtual Berlin Wall" site, several thousand users from China have left message condemning the censorship by the CCP. Many Internet users said that they considered China's Internet firewall as a Berlin Wall set between China and the outside world. They looked forward to its early collapse.