Internet censors muzzle Tiananmen talk

Chinese internet censors clamped down on search terms related to the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on Tuesday, restricting even discussion of the stock market when the Shanghai Composite Index fell by a number that alluded to the event’s date, The Wall Street Journal reported. Censors on Sina (SINA.NASDAQ) Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblog service, blocked a number of terms, and the clampdown extended to the financial world when the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index opened at 2346.98 and then ended down 64.89 points for the day. The index includes hundreds of Chinese companies and would be nearly impossible to manipulate. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a daily briefing that the country had reached a “clear conclusion” over the crackdown. Since then, China has enjoyed “continuous economic development, democracy [and] rule of law,” reflecting “the common aspiration of the Chinese people,” Liu said.