This comes as news to many in China who have long viewed Iran as an extremely conservative Muslim country where women have to cover their hair and bodies with scarves and robes. It’s mostly known here for leaders who openly challenge the United States and play cat-and-mouse over their stubborn nuclear power policies.

But people in Iran, usually seen as so mysterious and different from China, do enjoy many rights not endowed to Chinese citizens – such as voting and going out on the streets to express their discontent.

So it comes as a surprise to see that China’s mainstream media coverage of the post-election crisis in Iran has been fairly thorough. The protests and resulting bloodshed were reported all week in newspapers and on Web sites, with vivid videos and pictures.

There were even articles by academics who had expressed fears that images of protesters would be purposely blocked by Chinese authorities, so as not to trigger memories of the violent crackdown on the student movement in Beijing 20 years ago this month. Apparently their predictions were wrong.

The coverage included a healthy dose of analysis by Middle East experts, discussing the election results and the growing protests. But they did not say much about the events’ influence on China, despite the fact China is Iran’s biggest oil trading partner, as well as Iran’s biggest business partner in Asia.

Lively debate
Chinese Internet users have also engaged in lively debates in virtual chatrooms. After some discussion of actual events, the conversation always seems to switch to questions like: "What is America doing in Iran?" (It seems in China’s most active online chatrooms, Uncle Sam is involved in everything.)

"People in Iran should overthrow their Islamic maniac and war provoker Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," said one commenter on the most popular Internet chatroom, Tian Ya. 

That comment received an angry reply: "Oh really? Are you calling on Iranians to overthrow someone elected by themselves? War provoker? Tell me, has Iran in the past few decades provoked more wars than the democratic U.S.A?"

VIDEO: China wants censorship software on computers

Another comment stirred some controversy: "Isn’t it the same with America? They brainwash their people and shift people’s attention with the war in Iraq."

That comment received a sarcastic reply referring to China’s own restrictive policies: "Oh yes America brainwashes their people too? How? Do they use the Green Dam [software] to filter content online? Or does their statistics bureau give you fake data? Or do they block the Internet?"

But with the Iranian government now blocking social networking websites like Twitter and YouTube, any jealousy Chinese citizens may have fostered for their right to vote and protest likely switched to deep sympathy. As Chinese citizens, we are all too familiar with censorship.

原文在此：http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/06/19/1971333.aspx

北京一位陈姓官员表示，北京有37万余个网站，要管理这些网站并不比管理一个北京市更轻松，实行网络志愿者来协助相关部门进行监督，将会大大减轻网管办等相关单位的工作。

另 据北京青年报报道，从昨天召开的本市净化社会文化环境工作会议上获悉，即日起市网管办、首都精神文明办面向党政机关、企事业单位、学校、离退休人员等社会 各界人士征集网络志愿者。一支由一万名社会各界群众组成的网络志愿者队伍将在今年年底成立，他们将以实名制的方式，协助相关部门，对网站进行日常监督。

It’s always a curiosity to see how the tourists might react to seeing these folks. After all, the Falun Gong is a quasi-religious group banned in China, and authorities spare no effort in demonizing the organization among citizens.

Then, more recently, there are Zhao Ziyang’s memoirs, selling out across bookshops in Hong Kong, both in English and in Chinese. The former Communist Party chief was ousted in May 1989 during a power struggle that underpinned the student protests in Tiananmen Square
that year. Under house arrest until he died in 2005, Zhao secretly recorded 30 tapes detailing the inner workings of the Party, and they were recently published in a book format to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Of course, the book is not for sale on the Chinese mainland.

And then, of course, there is the Internet. In Hong Kong and unlike in China, we never need to log onto our NBC intranet in order to access certain websites. YouTube plays instantly. The Huffington Post loads easily. And we have yet to see the "error" message so often encountered on the mainland.

So it was with great dismay that last Monday, while we were still in Hong Kong, we learned about China’s latest efforts to shore up its Great Firewall.

The Green Dam
Bloggers and news reports quickly spread the news that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) will require personal computer manufacturers by July 1 to include a filtering software in all computers either manufactured here or imported into the country. 

Officials claim the technology is designed to protect Chinese youth. The software, known as the Green Dam Youth Escort, would link the computers with a regularly updated database of banned websites and automatically block access to those sites. 

A predictable outcry has arisen not only from PC makers, who largely do not want to be quoted in the media while expressing their concerns, but also from many of China’s almost 300-million strong Internet users, or as they call themselves in China, "netizens."

Popular online chat rooms were flooded with sarcastic, angry comments: "How I educate my kids is my own business! I don’t need you to tell me what to do!"  "Why should I buy a computer if I can’t browse to porn sites?" "Why don’t they monitor our phone calls and internet at home?  When we go out they can use satellite and cameras to monitor us. Oh and they can send bodyguards to monitor us when we sleep – that’s the best!"

Skeptics identifying themselves as taxpayers also expressed concern about Green Dam’s porn-filtering credibility; amidst reports the contract secured with the Chinese government is worth around million. Testers loaded pictures of three world famous cats – Garfield and two Japanese characters Doraemon and Hello Kitty – to see whether the filter worked. 

The result?  Doraemon – OK. Hello Kitty – OK. Garfield – "This information is malicious! It will be filtered!"

Apparently Garfield is a little too round and a little too yellow. The software deemed him suspiciously nude. "Undoubtedly, Green Dam will inspire a new trend of having sex with clothes on," said one comment on China’s biggest Internet chat forum Tianya.

Outrage from all sides
A spokesman from Green Dam’s developer, Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co., has refused to reveal what websites are on the blacklists, in order not to "promote these web portals."  But an ad hoc group of bloggers and computer techies has discovered all sorts of key words censored by the software (including the phrase "Falun Gong") and has posted its findings and analysis on Wikileaks. 

Meanwhile, PC users are afraid of possible personal information theft caused by the filtering software. In a survey on China’s biggest web portal www.sina.com.cn, over 80 percent of the Internet users voted, "I will not consider installing Green Dam on my computer." They might not take much comfort from a University of Michigan study that found "serious security vulnerabilities due to programming errors" in Green Dam. 

Gay rights groups also publicly protested the application because "homosexuality" is listed as malicious content alongside "pornography." Websites that contain words like "gay" or "lesbian" are prone to being filtered out by Green Dam. 

The uproar from targeted customers is not the only headache Jinhui faces. An American company, Solid Oak Software of Santa Barbara, claims Jinhui stole their programming code to create Green Dam and has sent "cease and desist" letters to Dell and Hewlett-Packard requesting them not to distribute the software with PC shipments. Jinhui denies the accusation.   

On Tuesday, an unidentified official with MIIT reiterated that users had the final say as to whether or not to use the software.  "PC makers are only required to save the setup files of the program in the hard drives of the computers, or provide CD-ROMs containing the program with their PC packages," he was quoted on the front page of the state-run China Daily newspaper. 

The article triggered many reports speculating whether the Chinese government was now backing down from its initial position, but one wonders what the Chinese authorities – no fan of mass movements of any kind – make of Iran’s opposition protesters demonstrating against the election results.  Especially in light of the emergence of Internet outlets like Twitter and YouTube in mobilizing Iranians onto the streets.

In the days leading up to the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, authorities here shut down both of those websites, in addition to several others. They’re back up and running again, but only until the next sensitive anniversary or an outbreak of mass dissent or unrest like the Tibet riots.

But don’t worry.  As elsewhere, Chinese Internet users have long demonstrated a knack for getting around firewalls and filters. 

A good example is Zhao’s memoirs, which made it to China on the Internet as a Chinese-language Word Document illegally downloaded everywhere.  As one comment on Tianya said, "The powerful and smart Chinese netizens have already figured out how to uninstall and crush the rogue software into ashes."

原文在此（与同事合写）：http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/06/17/1968066.aspx