An Australian government Web site was back online for China's 22 million Internet users for the first time in 18 months after complaints to Chinese officials over censorship, Australian officials.
The foreign affairs Web site returned to computer screens Wednesday, a day after Australian foreign affairs officials called in China's charge d'affairs Xie Xiaoyan in Canberra.
"In the meeting we stressed the importance of access to the site by Australian travelers," a foreign affairs representative said.
The representative said the Chinese government denied any censorship, saying technical problems were to blame for blacking out the Web site since late 1999.
"The charge d'affairs indicated that at no stage had the government blocked the department's Web site and offered to assist us in rectifying the problem," the representative said.
Last month, Australian diplomats in Beijing sent a formal letter to the Chinese government expressing concern over why the Web site had been offline in China for 18 months.
The Web site was accessible briefly in June during a visit to China by Australia's communications minister, Richard Alston, hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Information, which controls Internet access. But glitches have kept the Australian site, which contains information about global human rights dialogues and consular advice warning tourists about the potential for violence in various parts of China, from being accessed within China.
Late last year, the Chinese government introduced tough new bans on Internet use targeting information that might harm the country's unification policy, endanger national security or subvert the government.
