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BEIJING: Chinese Internet users have hailed the webcast town hall meeting held by Barack Obama, expressing hopes the US president can help them convince authorities to tear down the "Great Firewall of China".
Before an audience of handpicked Shanghai university students, Obama on Monday urged greater Internet freedom and artfully voiced opposition to the censors who block numerous websites, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
"I have always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I am a big supporter of non-censorship," the US president said. "I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger a society becomes."
His speech and subsequent responses to a handful of questions, both from the audience and submitted via email, earned plaudits across the Chinese blogosphere, where the live webcast of the event was widely available.
"Obama's answer on the Great Firewall is very interesting because he is the first president to talk about this, and it will move and urge the Chinese government to think," Beifeng, a well-known Chinese blogger, told AFP.
"We are all talking about Obama's answer on Internet censorship."
Savvy Chinese Internet users accessed Twitter via proxy servers to comment on Obama's remarks, but other strident and pro-Obama comments on Chinese websites were quickly deleted -- presumably by government censors.
"I hope that he (Obama) can have an influence over the Chinese government," Zuola, another well-known Chinese blogger, told AFP after the Shanghai event.
"But Chinese web users should also try to negotiate with the leaders of their own government, while using the influence of Obama," he said.
In the nation with the world's largest online population – where up to 350 million Chinese surf the Web and 60 million are avid bloggers – the communist government routinely censors any comments, reports or groups critical of its one-party rule.
Obama, however, hinted that Chinese leaders would be better off listening to such critics.
"In the United States information is free, and I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me," Obama said. "I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear."
Most Chinese Internet users were supportive of Obama's comments not only on Internet freedoms, but also on "universal rights" such as religious freedom, freedom of expression and the right of political participation.
"Obama's disposition and character is the kind of thing Chinese leaders lack," said one posting on the Tianya website.
One user posted on the major sina.com portal: "The best thing he brought to the Chinese people today was by broadcasting his words of justice... human rights and freedom, isn't this what we have always needed."
Others were not so positive.
"The speech about universal rights by Obama to Chinese youth in Shanghai was interference in the internal affairs of another country," said one web user, repeating a stock official response to criticisms of Beijing's rights record.
For Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, Obama discussed his American views but did not go far enough on what he thinks about China's censorship.
"He expressed a position, saying that based on American political values or on his personal values, he was for non-censorship, but then he immediately added that different nations have different traditions," Bequelin said.
- AFP/so
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