HONG KONG — China’s notorious online controls have long been criticized as censorship by human rights groups, businesses, Chinese Internet users and others.
香港——中国对网络的控制众所周知。人权团体、企业、中国网民等方面早就在对这种审查进行谴责。
Now they have earned a new label from the American government: trade barrier.
现在，美国政府又给这种控制添加了新的标签：贸易壁垒。
United States trade officials have for the first time added China’s system of Internet filters and blocks — broadly known as the Great Firewall — to an annual list of trade impediments. The entry says that over the last decade, the limits have “posed a significant burden to foreign suppliers, hurting both Internet sites themselves, and users who often depend on them for business.”
美国贸易官员首次将中国的互联网过滤和拦截系统——也就是大家所说的“防火长城”——列入一个贸易障碍年度清单。相关条目写着，在过去10年，这种限制“给外国供应商带来了巨大负担，遭受损失的既有网站本身，也包括往往需要使用这些网站开展业务的用户”。
The report from the Office of the United States Trade Representative said that over the last year, the “outright blocking of websites appears to have worsened,” noting that eight of the top 25 most popular global sites are blocked in China.
美国贸易代表办公室(Office of the United States Trade Representative)发布的这份报告称，在过去一年里，“网站被彻底屏蔽的现象似乎有所恶化”，全球25个人气最高的网站中，有八个在中国遭到屏蔽。
“Much of the blocking appears arbitrary; for example, a major home improvement site in the United States, which would appear wholly innocuous, is typical of sites likely swept up by the Great Firewall,” the report said.
“很多屏蔽案例显得相当随意，例如，一家知名的美国家装网站，看上去完全没有恶意，却是可能遭防火长城封锁的典型对象，”文中称。
China blocks some of the biggest corporate names on the Internet, including services offered by Google, Facebook and Twitter. That can hobble the ability of foreign companies to do business in China, whether through blocked websites or workplaces that cannot reach Gmail, Google’s email service. China also blocks a growing number of foreign news outlets, including the website of The New York Times.
中国屏蔽了一些互联网巨头的服务，比如谷歌(Google)、Facebook和Twitter。这可能会削弱外国公司在中国开展业务的能力，无论是通过屏蔽网站本身，还是让人在工作场所无法访问谷歌的电子邮件服务Gmail。中国还屏蔽了越来越多的境外新闻媒体，其中就包括《纽约时报》的网站。
Officials at China’s commerce and foreign affairs ministries, as well as at its top Internet regulatory agency, did not respond to requests for comment.
中国的商务部、外交部及最高级别互联网监管机构的官员，均未对置评请求做出回应。
In recent years, China and the United States have clashed over trade in the technology industry. Last year, the Obama administration responded to lobbying from American companies against a number of Chinese laws that the companies said were devised to push them out of China. Beijing toned down language in an antiterrorism law, and it scrapped a regulation restricting what foreign hardware could be sold to Chinese banks.
近年来，中国和美国在科技业贸易领域发生过冲突。去年，奥巴马政府对一些美国企业的游说做出了回应。这些公司对中国的若干法律不满，称它们的目的是把自己从中国赶走。之后，北京放软了一部反恐法的语气，废除了一项限制外国硬件销往中国的银行的监管规定。
Still, any effort by the United States to persuade China to reduce its Internet censorship would most likely be a nonstarter. The Chinese government considers the close control of online discourse a matter of national security, largely out of concerns about the Internet’s power to aid the organization of protests and the spread of dissent. As a result, Beijing has shown little flexibility on issues of censorship in the past, and it tends to block any Internet media it feels it does not have complete control over.
不过，美国说服中国减少互联网审查的努力全都可能无功而返。中国政府认为，对网上交流的严密控制事关国家安全，主要是因为互联网可以帮助人们组织抗议活动、散播异见，令他们担忧。其结果就是，北京一直在审查问题上没有显示出什么弹性，往往会屏蔽它觉得无法完全控制的任何网络媒体。
Scott Kennedy, who holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the move by the United States trade office illustrated the gulf between the attitude represented by China’s heavy regulation of the Internet and the one put forward by the United States through trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
国际战略研究中心(Center for Strategic and International Studies)费和中国研究项目(Freeman Chair in China Studies)学者甘思德(Scott Kennedy)说，美国贸易代表办公室这个举动显示了两种态度之间的鸿沟：一方面是中国严控互联网所体现的态度，另一方面则是美国通过跨太平洋伙伴关系协定(Trans Pacific Partnership)这样的贸易协议表现出来的态度。
“China is far less willing to separate commercial and national security concerns,” he wrote in an email. “This difference in approach is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, no matter how much the U.S. highlights the issue.”
“比起美国，中国极不愿意把商业和国家安全问题分割开来，”他在电子邮件中写道。“无论美国对这一议题怎么强调，这种处理手法的不同都不可能在短时间内消失。”
China cites the threat of online espionage, pointing to disclosures by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, that showed American intelligence efforts to use American hardware abroad to gather information.
中国把网络间谍威胁作为一个理由，指出美国国家安全局前承包商雇员爱德华·J·斯诺登(Edward J. Snowden)曝光的文件显示，美国情报界试图利用境外的美国硬件来搜集信息。
Online filters in China create an Internet largely walled off from the rest of the world, violating the fundamental idea of the web as an open channel of communication among people across the globe. Detractors say that the practice is anticompetitive, prohibits freedom of expression and ultimately damages Chinese economic growth by limiting access to information. Supporters of China’s policies say that the rules have allowed the country to foster a thriving set of domestic Internet companies.
中国的网络过滤机制营造出了一个与世界严重隔离的互联网，违反了“网络是沟通世界各地人们的开放渠道”这个基本理念。批评者称，这种做法是反竞争的，限制了言论自由，而且阻碍了人们对信息的获取，最终会损害中国的经济增长。支持中国这种政策的人则认为，它让中国有机会培养了一批繁荣的本土互联网企业。
The United States trade office added China’s Internet censorship policies to its annual National Trade Estimate Report, released on March 31. The insertion was reported on April 1 by Inside U.S. Trade, a trade publication.
美国贸易代表办公室把中国的互联网审查政策添加到其年度《贸易评估报告》(National Trade Estimate Report)中。全文于3月31日发布。行业刊物《美国贸易内情》(U.S. Trade)在4月1日报道了这个添加。
American trade officials have scrutinized the Great Firewall in the past. In 2011, the United States trade office said that China’s filters were a commercial barrier that hurt American small businesses. The statement was among the formal questions submitted through the World Trade Organization to China about what laws and regulations dictated the availability of commercial websites in the country.
美国贸易官员过去就对“防火长城”进行过审视。2011年，美国贸易办公室称，中国的这些过滤机制属于商业壁垒，损害了美国小企业利益。美国当时通过世界贸易组织(WTO)提交给中国一些正式问题，涉及什么样的法规决定了商业网站在中国的可用性，而这一论断是其中之一。
Some of the largest American Internet companies and foreign trade groups have long lobbied the United States to treat censorship as a trade matter. For instance, in 2008, Google’s deputy general counsel testified before a Senate subcommittee that the United States government should make the matter a central issue in trade talks.
美国一些互联网巨头和大型外贸团体长期开展游说活动，想让美国把中国的审查当作贸易问题来对待。例如在2008年，谷歌的副总法律顾问出席参议院一个小组委员会的听证会，宣称美国政府应该将此事纳入贸易谈判的核心议题。