美國把中國防火長城 首次列爲貿易壁壘

HONG KONG — China’s notorious online controls have long been criticized as censorship by human rights groups, businesses, Chinese Internet users and others.

香港——中國對網絡的控制衆所周知。人權團體、企業、中國網民等方面早就在對這種審查進行譴責。

Now they have earned a new label from the American government: trade barrier.

現在，美國政府又給這種控制添加了新的標籤：貿易壁壘。

United States trade officials have for the first time added China’s system of Internet filters and blocks — broadly known as the Great Firewall — to an annual list of trade impediments. The entry says that over the last decade, the limits have “posed a significant burden to foreign suppliers, hurting both Internet sites themselves, and users who often depend on them for business.”

美國貿易官員首次將中國的互聯網過濾和攔截系統——也就是大家所說的“防火長城”——列入一個貿易障礙年度清單。相關條目寫着，在過去10年，這種限制“給外國供應商帶來了巨大負擔，遭受損失的既有網站本身，也包括往往需要使用這些網站開展業務的用戶”。

The report from the Office of the United States Trade Representative said that over the last year, the “outright blocking of websites appears to have worsened,” noting that eight of the top 25 most popular global sites are blocked in China.

美國貿易代表辦公室(Office of the United States Trade Representative)發佈的這份報告稱，在過去一年裏，“網站被徹底屏蔽的現象似乎有所惡化”，全球25個人氣最高的網站中，有八個在中國遭到屏蔽。

“Much of the blocking appears arbitrary; for example, a major home improvement site in the United States, which would appear wholly innocuous, is typical of sites likely swept up by the Great Firewall,” the report said.

“很多屏蔽案例顯得相當隨意，例如，一家知名的美國家裝網站，看上去完全沒有惡意，卻是可能遭防火長城封鎖的典型對象，”文中稱。

China blocks some of the biggest corporate names on the Internet, including services offered by Google, Facebook and Twitter. That can hobble the ability of foreign companies to do business in China, whether through blocked websites or workplaces that cannot reach Gmail, Google’s email service. China also blocks a growing number of foreign news outlets, including the website of The New York Times.

中國屏蔽了一些互聯網巨頭的服務，比如谷歌(Google)、Facebook和Twitter。這可能會削弱外國公司在中國開展業務的能力，無論是通過屏蔽網站本身，還是讓人在工作場所無法訪問谷歌的電子郵件服務Gmail。中國還屏蔽了越來越多的境外新聞媒體，其中就包括《紐約時報》的網站。

Officials at China’s commerce and foreign affairs ministries, as well as at its top Internet regulatory agency, did not respond to requests for comment.

中國的商務部、外交部及最高級別互聯網監管機構的官員，均未對置評請求做出迴應。

In recent years, China and the United States have clashed over trade in the technology industry. Last year, the Obama administration responded to lobbying from American companies against a number of Chinese laws that the companies said were devised to push them out of China. Beijing toned down language in an antiterrorism law, and it scrapped a regulation restricting what foreign hardware could be sold to Chinese banks.

近年來，中國和美國在科技業貿易領域發生過沖突。去年，奧巴馬政府對一些美國企業的遊說做出了迴應。這些公司對中國的若干法律不滿，稱它們的目的是把自己從中國趕走。之後，北京放軟了一部反恐法的語氣，廢除了一項限制外國硬件銷往中國的銀行的監管規定。

Still, any effort by the United States to persuade China to reduce its Internet censorship would most likely be a nonstarter. The Chinese government considers the close control of online discourse a matter of national security, largely out of concerns about the Internet’s power to aid the organization of protests and the spread of dissent. As a result, Beijing has shown little flexibility on issues of censorship in the past, and it tends to block any Internet media it feels it does not have complete control over.

不過，美國說服中國減少互聯網審查的努力全都可能無功而返。中國政府認爲，對網上交流的嚴密控制事關國家安全，主要是因爲互聯網可以幫助人們組織抗議活動、散播異見，令他們擔憂。其結果就是，北京一直在審查問題上沒有顯示出什麼彈性，往往會屏蔽它覺得無法完全控制的任何網絡媒體。

Scott Kennedy, who holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the move by the United States trade office illustrated the gulf between the attitude represented by China’s heavy regulation of the Internet and the one put forward by the United States through trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

國際戰略研究中心(Center for Strategic and International Studies)費和中國研究項目(Freeman Chair in China Studies)學者甘思德(Scott Kennedy)說，美國貿易代表辦公室這個舉動顯示了兩種態度之間的鴻溝：一方面是中國嚴控互聯網所體現的態度，另一方面則是美國通過跨太平洋夥伴關係協定(Trans Pacific Partnership)這樣的貿易協議表現出來的態度。

“China is far less willing to separate commercial and national security concerns,” he wrote in an email. “This difference in approach is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, no matter how much the U.S. highlights the issue.”

“比起美國，中國極不願意把商業和國家安全問題分割開來，”他在電子郵件中寫道。“無論美國對這一議題怎麼強調，這種處理手法的不同都不可能在短時間內消失。”

China cites the threat of online espionage, pointing to disclosures by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, that showed American intelligence efforts to use American hardware abroad to gather information.

中國把網絡間諜威脅作爲一個理由，指出美國國家安全局前承包商僱員愛德華·J·斯諾登(Edward J. Snowden)曝光的文件顯示，美國情報界試圖利用境外的美國硬件來蒐集信息。

Online filters in China create an Internet largely walled off from the rest of the world, violating the fundamental idea of the web as an open channel of communication among people across the globe. Detractors say that the practice is anticompetitive, prohibits freedom of expression and ultimately damages Chinese economic growth by limiting access to information. Supporters of China’s policies say that the rules have allowed the country to foster a thriving set of domestic Internet companies.

中國的網絡過濾機制營造出了一個與世界嚴重隔離的互聯網，違反了“網絡是溝通世界各地人們的開放渠道”這個基本理念。批評者稱，這種做法是反競爭的，限制了言論自由，而且阻礙了人們對信息的獲取，最終會損害中國的經濟增長。支持中國這種政策的人則認爲，它讓中國有機會培養了一批繁榮的本土互聯網企業。

The United States trade office added China’s Internet censorship policies to its annual National Trade Estimate Report, released on March 31. The insertion was reported on April 1 by Inside U.S. Trade, a trade publication.

美國貿易代表辦公室把中國的互聯網審查政策添加到其年度《貿易評估報告》(National Trade Estimate Report)中。全文於3月31日發佈。行業刊物《美國貿易內情》(U.S. Trade)在4月1日報道了這個添加。

American trade officials have scrutinized the Great Firewall in the past. In 2011, the United States trade office said that China’s filters were a commercial barrier that hurt American small businesses. The statement was among the formal questions submitted through the World Trade Organization to China about what laws and regulations dictated the availability of commercial websites in the country.

美國貿易官員過去就對“防火長城”進行過審視。2011年，美國貿易辦公室稱，中國的這些過濾機制屬於商業壁壘，損害了美國小企業利益。美國當時通過世界貿易組織(WTO)提交給中國一些正式問題，涉及什麼樣的法規決定了商業網站在中國的可用性，而這一論斷是其中之一。

Some of the largest American Internet companies and foreign trade groups have long lobbied the United States to treat censorship as a trade matter. For instance, in 2008, Google’s deputy general counsel testified before a Senate subcommittee that the United States government should make the matter a central issue in trade talks.

美國一些互聯網巨頭和大型外貿團體長期開展遊說活動，想讓美國把中國的審查當作貿易問題來對待。例如在2008年，谷歌的副總法律顧問出席參議院一個小組委員會的聽證會，宣稱美國政府應該將此事納入貿易談判的核心議題。