U.S. Trade Officials Urge China to Revoke PC Rule

U.S. trade officials called on China to revoke an order for personal computers to be shipped with Web-filtering software, the highest-level U.S. complaint yet against the rule, as the two superpowers spar over a host of trade and security issues.

U.S. trade officials called on China to revoke an order for personal computers to be shipped with Web-filtering software, the highest-level U.S. complaint yet against the rule, as the two superpowers spar over a host of trade and security issues.Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a letter to two Chinese ministries Wednesday that the requirement, which takes effect July 1, could conflict with Beijing’s World Trade Organization obligations.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124584251393346953.htmlAlso see:U.S. Objects to China’s Web Filtering
The Obama administration lodged a formal protest on Wednesday with the Chinese government over its plan to force all computers sold in China to come with software that blocks access to certain Web sites.Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Ron Kirk, the trade representative, sent a letter to officials in two Chinese ministries asking them to rescind a rule about the software that is set to take effect on July 1.
http://nytimes.com/2009/06/25/world/asia/25censor.htmlReport: Threats made to maker of China filtering [AP]
The Chinese manufacturer of Internet-filtering software that must be distributed with all new computers next week has received death threats, state media said Wednesday.Workers at Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co. received more than 1,000 harassing phone calls this month, according to Zhang Chenmin, the general manager of the company. He said personal information of some of the programmers had been leaked online, and one caller threatened to kill his wife and child.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/06/24/financial/f075348D03.DTL

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