James Fallows has been following the accessibility of NYTimes.com in China: he concludes that blocked nationwide. Reuters has also called it a block.
On December 16, Reuters reported that ‘Access to the Chinese-language versions of the BBC, Voice of America and Hong Kong media Ming Pao News and Asiaweek has been blocked since early December’ (see report).
Yesterday, The New York Times itself reported that its website had been blocked, but also noted the following:
But the Chinese-language Web sites of BBC, Voice of America and Asiaweek, all of which had been blocked earlier this week, were accessible by Friday. The Web site of Ming Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper, was blocked earlier this week and still restricted on Friday.
In Beijing today on your correspondent’s ADSL connection, the BBC’s Chinese language site is working but VOA Chinese, AsiaWeek and Ming Pao are not accessible without a proxy.
There has been some speculative chatter online and off that a Times article, After 30 years, economic perils on China’s path, is the cause of the block.
UPDATE:
— Monday December 22 NYTimes.com seems to be functioning normally in Beijing again according to several people around the city.
More speculation about the cause of the block: That the Net Nanny had intended to target The New York Review of Books but got confused because both publications have New York in the name.
That sounds like a joke, but China’s Net Nanny has always acted a little like a bipolar old crone who misplaced her meds.
Joke or not, there is a reason why the website of The New York Review of Books may have been targeted:
It recently published an English translation of ‘Charter Oh Eight’, a document calling for radical change in China that was signed by various intellectuals and citizens and widely circulated abroad. Very few people in the Mainland know about the document and the Internet authorities would rather it stayed that way.
UPDATE 2:
Adam Minter on Shanghai Scrap has posted his thoughts on Why China’s block of the New York Times doesn’t matter (as much as it once did).
He kindly mentions Danwei along with ESWN, China Environmental Law, Shanghaiist and China Law Blog as his primary information sources about China.
The pride of being on Minter’s daily reading list is perhaps mitigated by his characterization of the Danwei comrades:
What’s curious to me – in fact, what’s astounding to me – is that the Chinese authorities either haven’t picked up on this phenomenon, or they don’t care. Instead, they are doing what Chinese officials always do: focusing their attention on the entity with the most prestige. Quite honestly, I think most Chinese officials would have a hard time believing that the rather rag-tag unwashed mass of (for the most part) young, male, poorly compensated bloggers could actually drive news coverage.
We have been taking regular showers since 2005.
UPDATE 3: And here’s another thought, from Chris Devonshire-Ellis at China Briefing:
It was widely reported that the New York Times website had been blocked by in China late last week. China Briefing can reveal that the issue was a technical problem relating to problems with incoming servers located at the Beijing TV Tower, which receives and redistributes websites.