China’s New, Severe Curbs on the Internet Leave Little Left to Censor

In late October, as he pushed to cement his grip on China’s ruling Communist Party for another five years, President Xi Jinping made it clear that with him in charge, the country’s internet wouldn’t be getting more liberal.

At the twice-a-decade National Congress of the Communist Party, during a three-and-a-half-hour speech extolling the virtues of China’s version of socialism, Xi said officials need to engage with the public and pledged to do it on specific terms. “We will provide more and better online content and put in place a system for integrated internet management to ensure a clean cyberspace,” he told more than 2,000 party delegates as he kicked off the weeklong assembly. “We will distinguish between matters of political principle, issues of understanding and thinking, and academic viewpoints, but we must oppose and resist various erroneous views with a clear stand.”