US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech on Internet freedom recently in which she covertly criticized China's policy toward online users. It's true that the Net is free. But freedom does not mean we should not have regulations, says an article in Beijing News. Excerpts:

In a recent speech on Internet freedom, US Secretarty of State Hillary Clinton urged China to investigate the reported attacks on Google, implying that the Chinese government's Internet policy had deficiencies. The Foreign Ministry responded by stating its opposition to Clinton's move.

Some statistics would help us understand the problem. Until the end of 2009, China had 384 million Internet users, and their number is growing by 200,000 a day. Many international observers have even proclaimed China as the country where the Net is developing most actively.