- Tania Branigan in Beijing
- guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 January 2009 08.54 GMT
- Article history
People in a Beijing bar watch the inauguration of the US president, Barack Obama. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images
Millions of Chinese readers and viewers followed Barack Obama's inauguration yesterday � but something was missing from his speech.
Websites censored the new US president's references to communism and dissent, and state television abruptly cut away from the live broadcast when communism was mentioned.
"Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions," Obama said in his 18-minute address.
He later added: "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
A YouTube clip of China Central Television coverage shows the feed from Washington suddenly muted after the translator said the word "communism". The programme quickly cut back to the studio, where a startled anchor asked an analyst a question about the economic challenges facing the new president.
In text translations available on the popular internet portals Sina and Sohu today, the word "communism" was omitted and the paragraph on dissent was gone, while another site, Netease, cut the communism paragraph in its entirety. It did include the comments on dissent, and was praised by several Chinese people posting comments.
An uncut version of the speech appeared in English on the website run by state newspaper China Daily.
The censorship comes amid a growing crackdown on websites. The state news agency Xinhua reported yesterday that officials had blocked more than 700 sites this month in a campaign against pornography and "vulgar" content.
Critics believe it is also intended to put pressure on sites to step up censorship in general. The government is concerned that the economic downturn will lead to growing social unrest in a sensitive year, which marks significant anniversaries of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Tiananmen Square protests and the failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet.
Yesterday, the son of the well-known democracy activist Yao Lifa said his father had disappeared shortly before he was due to attend an inauguration reception at the US consulate in Wuhan.
Yao Yao told the Reuters news agency: "He's often been informally detained by [local] officials before, and I think it's the same this time ... I think they did not like him going to the Obama inauguration reception."
Yao had been invited to the reception as a past participant in a US state department-sponsored learning programme.
He signed the Charter 08 petition issued last month demanding democratic political reform.
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