BEIJING — If anyone wonders whether the Chinese government has tightened its grip on electronic communications since protests began engulfing the Arab world, Shakespeare may prove instructive.
A Beijing entrepreneur, discussing restaurant choices with his fiancée over their cellphones last week, quoted Queen Gertrude’s response to Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The second time he said the word “protest,” her phone cut off.
He spoke English, but another caller, repeating the same phrase on Monday in Chinese over a different phone, was also cut off in midsentence.
A host of evidence over the past several weeks shows that
Chinese authorities are more determined than ever to police
cellphone calls, electronic messages, e-mail and access to the
Internet in order to smother any hint of antigovernment
sentiment. In the cat-and-mouse game that characterizes
electronic communications here, analysts suggest that the cat is
getting bigger, especially since revolts began to ricochet
through the Middle East and North Africa, and homegrown efforts
to organize protests in China began to circulate on the Internet
about a month ago.
[...]
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/asia/22china.html