CHINESE authorities have lifted restrictions on many of the 100 or so western media sites on the Internet, which they blocked three months ago in an apparent act of censorship.
There was no official announcement of the roadblocks erected on the information super highway at the time, nor has there been any public acknowledgment that the ban had been lifted.
However, in recent days dozens of web sites which were unattainable have been opened to personal computer users again. These include the Wall Street Journal, the Hong Kong South China Morning Post and The Irish Times. Access to some other western news sites, including CNN, has not yet been restored.
The Internet has been available in China since mid-1995, and has 20,000 subscribers, many of whom share with other computer users. A clamp-down on unapproved news on the information super highway had long been predicted, but the authorities now appear to be having second thoughts.
News in China is strictly controlled by the communist authorities, and western, Hong Kong and other foreign newspapers are available only in big hotels. The government has already banned the unofficial use of satellite dishes to pick up foreign television stations, except in hotels and apartment blocks where foreigners live.
One explanation offered by an official when the sites were blocked was that the real target was sex-related news and pictures, and that it took a while to distinguish which sites caused "problems".
The action coincides with new thinking in Beijing on making the economy more open to strengthen China's case for joining the World Trade Organisation. At the weekend, the official media published details of new trade initiatives as part of its drive for WTO entry.
"From 1997-2000, China is expected to open its insurance and stock market wider to foreign investment," the China Daily said, quoting Mr Ma Jixian, an official of the State Economic and Trade Commission.
Before 2000, foreign insurers would have access to markets outside Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, said Mr Ma. Foreign stock companies would be allowed to handle A shares, currently confined to Chinese citizens. China will allow foreign banks to open more operational outfits in 24 Chinese cities, and launch pilot bases where foreign banks can conduct business in Chinese yuan.
In the first decade of the next century, foreign banks would be allowed to expand their presence beyond the current 24 pilot cities, and more pilot bases would be available for them to conduct yuan business.
China would also allow overseas retailers to establish more joint venture or co-operative retailing chains in areas beyond the 11 pilot cities currently allowed, the newspaper said. Foreign retailers would be free to open outlets in China by 2020.
In the meantime, foreign investors would be allowed larger stakes in China's power sector and have greater access to China's river, marine and road transportation if Beijing becomes a member of the WTO. The tourism sector would also be opened, with joint venture travel agencies allowed in five cities on an experimental basis over the next three years.
China has already pledged to cut its average import tariffs to about 15 per cent from the current 23 per cent. Some western countries have resisted China's application for WTO membership as a developing nation. The countries, particularly the US, have insisted its economy is too big for such preferential treatment.