Shaheen, Sullivan Reintroduce Bipartisan Bill to Counter Censorship in China and Promote Free Expression for Chinese Citizens

WASHINGTON—Today, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and reintroduced the Informing a Nation with Free, Open, and Reliable Media (INFORM) Act to improve access to independent information and advance freedom of expression for citizens in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

This legislation strengthens efforts at the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for Global Media to develop technology to bypass PRC internet censorship, provide secure content-sharing tools for citizens, and support independent Mandarin language content and journalism. It also empowers citizen journalism and independent media outlets to produce and report on news throughout China.

“One of Xi Jinping’s greatest weaknesses is that he is afraid of his own people,” said Senator Sullivan. “This legislation lays out a way to exploit this weakness and make the most of America’s greatest strategic advantage—our commitment to liberty. The CCP’s vast censorship apparatus—the ‘great firewall’—works to silence free expression and deny their citizens truthful information about the corruption of CCP leaders. Our INFORM Act gets around this firewall and allows the Chinese people to access information about their own government and connect with others across the globe who also yearn for freedom. I look forward to working with Congress and with the Trump administration to make this bill a reality.”

“Chinese citizens are subjected to extreme government censorship and as economic and social conditions deteriorate inside the People’s Republic of China, they’re seeking independent news sources and, increasingly, more freedom from the excessive control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” said Ranking Member Shaheen. “As we work to counter the CCP propaganda and censorship efforts across the globe, it’s critical we also empower the Chinese people to access independent, unbiased information about their own country and the rest of world. Our bipartisan INFORM Act will help to accomplish exactly that.” 

Key provisions of the INFORM Act include:

1. Requiring the State Department and interagency to develop a comprehensive strategy for expanding information and engagement with Chinese citizens in the information space
2. Improving the level of coordination among federal agencies to develop and disseminate timely and compelling Mandarin Chinese-language content that is otherwise blocked by the PRC government’s highly censored and restrictive internet ecosystem
3. Increasing funding for media freedom programming, investigative journalism, and Mandarin Chinese-language content development initiatives, including by establishing and expanding a network of independent journalists or media companies that investigate and produce articles, reports, and other content related to real-time social, political, and economic events in the PRC
4. Providing resources to the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for Global Media to further develop and innovate circumvention and secure content sharing tools for Chinese citizens to bypass the PRC’s stringent censorship regime and ensure that those tools are more effectively paired with access to independent and reliable information
5. Strengthening diplomatic efforts to counter the lack of reciprocity with the PRC in the online information and public diplomacy space

Full text of the legislation can be found here. 

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