Cyber Tiananmen Square and Firewalls - The Era of Institutionalized Information Control Since 1989

Cyber Tiananmen Square and Firewalls - The Era of Institutionalized Information Control Since 1989

The Tiananmen Square incident in June 1989 was a symbol of China's demand for democracy that could shake the system, and at the same time, it was an opportunity for China to become acutely aware of the "threat of information distribution. With the spread of satellite broadcasting and international communications, external images and news spread beyond national borders, revealing the reality that people at home and abroad share the same moment. In the 1990s, China began to consolidate international connections into monitored lines, and in 1997 it introduced regulations requiring users to register their real names and keep records of their communications. In the 2000s, the "Great Firewall," which selectively blocked foreign sites, search services, and social networking services, was completed, establishing a system of technical censorship. This system went beyond mere blocking and became the theoretical foundation for the "sovereignty of the Internet," which led to the policy o
f treating cyberspace as national territory. As a result, China fostered its own digital ecosystem, such as Baidu and Weibo, and built another information empire that differed from the Western Internet structure. The tightening of control triggered by the Tiananmen Square incident marked a turning point in China's early recognition of cyberspace as a strategic resource and anticipation of the international "information warfare era.