Liberal Studies China to lift ban on Facebook but only within Shanghai free-trade

zone
Article: China to lift ban on Facebook but only within Shanghai free-trade zone :
South China Morning Post:Monday, September 23th, 2013

Ask students if they use any social networking sites and which
ones?
Why do we use these social networking sites?
Could we live without it?

Students need to match the vocabulary with the meaning

Students complete sentences with words. Students check answer

with partner

Students will read an article from the South Morning China Post.
Elicit words or phrases in the text they dont know the meaning of.
Encourage students to help each other with vocabulary. After
reading the text discuss with students about the text then answer
the comprehension questions.

China to lift ban on Facebook but only within Shanghai free-trade zone

Beijing has made the landmark decision to lift a ban on internet access
within the Shanghai Free-trade Zone to foreign websites considered
politically sensitive by the Chinese government, including Facebook,
Twitter and newspaper website The New York Times.
Government sources informed of the decision told the South China
Morning Post on condition of anonymity that the authority in charge of the
Hong Kong-like free-trade zone in Shanghai, the first such zone on the
mainland, would also welcome bids from foreign telecommunications
companies for licences to provide internet services within the new special
economic zone.
The mainlands three biggest telecommunications companies China
Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, which are all state-owned
enterprises, have already been informed of the decision to allow foreign
companies to compete with them for business in the free-trade zone in
Shanghai, said the sources.
The Big Three didnt raise complaints as they knew it was a decision
endorsed by top Chinese leaders including Premier Li Keqiang, who is keen
to make the free-trade zone a key proving ground for significant financial
and economic reforms, the sources added.
In order to welcome foreign companies to invest and to let foreigners live
and work happily in the free-trade zone, we must think about how we can
make them feel like at home. If they cant get onto Facebook or read The
New York Times, they may naturally wonder how special the free-trade
zone is compared with the rest of China, said one of the government
sources who declined to be named due to the highly political sensitive
nature of the matter.
However Beijings decision to open up internet access only applies to the
free-trade zone and not anywhere else in the country, the sources said. In
late August the State Council, Chinas cabinet, approved the launch of the
free-trade zone in Shanghai, which will span 28.78 square kilometres in
the citys Pudong New Area, including the Waigaoqiao duty-free zone,
Yangshan deepwater port, and the international airport area.
Government sources told the Post earlier this month that the free-trade
zone could be eventually expanded over the next few years to include the
entire Pudong district, which covers 1,210.4 square kilometres, if the first-

phase launch is proved a success in helping China to restructure its

economy. The government hopes the free-trade zone will attract more
foreign investment and liberalise the nations foreign exchange and
interest rate system, making capital flow much more easily.
Facebook and Twitter banned on the mainland since 2009 have played
important roles in political movements in the Middle East in recent years,
and Beijing is concerned about the impact of new media on social stability.
Although Chinas economy is now already the worlds second largest, just
behind the United States, Beijing keeps tight control over the media. It
blocks access to several internet websites through the Great Firewall of
China, the colloquial name for the Golden Shield project which is operated
by the Ministry of Public Security.
Dozens of major foreign news sites including the online edition of The New
York Times, which last year alleged that family members of former Chinese
premier Wen Jiabao had accumulated massive wealth through secretive
investments that may have involved bribery, are also currently banned on
the mainland.
Foreign visitors and many foreigners who reside on the mainland for work
and study have complained about difficulties in accessing those news
sites. Occasionally even the worlds No 1 search engine Google and its
email service Gmail are unavailable.
Bosses at social media networks and major media companies whose
websites are banned on the mainland have lobbied Beijing for years to lift
these bans. More recently, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl
Sandberg met Cai Mingzhao, the head of the State Council Information
Office in Beijing, and an official photograph of the meeting was published
on the Chinese governments website, though Facebook said Sandbergs
visit to China was mainly to promote her new book.
Allowing foreign telecommunications companies to compete with stateowned telecommunications enterprises is a long-awaited breakthrough
that would be welcomed by several former top leaders, including former
premier Zhu Rongji, but there has been little progress in the past partly
due to domestic political pressure.
Wen succeeded Zhu as premier, and was in turn succeeded by Li just
earlier this year, in the mainlands No 2 most powerful job after President
Xi Jinping.
State media has described the Shanghai Free-trade Zone, which has won
direct and decisive support from Li despite open opposition from some
industry regulators, just as important as Deng Xiaopings decision to open
up the Shenzhen special economic zones to foreign investors about three
decades ago.