China Reform Monitor: No. 1219

April 4:

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe plans to introduce more stringent monitoring of the internet and other social media platforms. While addressing party supporters, Mugabe said: "There is a lot of filth in it (social media). There are a lot of serious insults peddled in there. A lot of abuses; some are now using it in negative ways. It is widespread." The 92-year-old leader said his government was looking to set up internet control apparatus similar to China's Great Fire Wall. "China set up security measures and we will soon look into how they are administering it so that the abuses and insults can be reduced." The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights reported last month that at least 150 Zimbabweans have been arrested since 2010 for insulting Mugabe online,the New Zimbabwe reports.

April 5:

Last year, an old house that President Xi Jinping's deceased father Xi Zhongxun used to live in located in Fuping has been expanded from a small museum to a personal cemetery cover an area of nearly 27 million sq. meters. Villagers' houses were demolished to make room for the reconstruction and the official in charge of the project was promoted to Vice Mayor of Xian, Shaanxi, Hong Kong's Apple Daily reports.

April 6:

Fang Binxing, known as the "father of China's Great Firewall," for his role in developing the system of internet controls in China, uses virtual private networks (or VPNs) to gain access to the uncensored internet. During a presentation on digital security at his alma mater, the Harbin Institute of Technology, Fang was forced to use a VPN when he could not reach websites in South Korea. Unfortunately for Fang, the VPN repeatedly failed, prompting him to ad-lib some of his presentation. A discussion after the talk was canceled. Fang once said he has six VPNs, which he only uses "to test which side wins: The GFW or the VPN" and maybe to take an occasional peek over the wall, theNew York Times reports.

April 7:

At least eight relatives of current or former Chinese Communist leaders are involved in secret offshore companies, according to leaked documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. At a Politburo meeting it was decided to continue blocking, banning and deleting related messages and reports, Hong Kong's Economic Journal reports. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman dismissed the accusations as groundless and refused to comment, and the official Global Times called them "a new means for the ideology-allied Western nations to strike a blow to non-Western political elites." President Xi Jinping's brother-in-law, Deng Jiagui, a property magnate, was listed as the sole director of three companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, theEconomist reports. The son-in-law of Zhang Gaoli, a Politburo Standing Committee member, owns three such firms, while the daughter-in-law of Liu Yunshan, the Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of ideology and propaganda, owns one.

April 8:

The Office of the United States Trade Representative has added China's internet censorship policies to its annual National Trade Estimate Report released on March 31,The New York Times reports. According to the report China's Great Firewall "poses a significant burden to foreign suppliers, hurting both Internet sites themselves and users who often depend on them for business." The report 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. "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.