This is taken from the Financial Times:BBC tones down news on new China website
By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Mure Dickie
Published: February 4 2006 02:00The BBC World Service has launched a website targeted at the mainland Chinese market, offering English-language training and news that is unlikely to upset Beijing's internet censors.
China has long blocked access to the British broadcaster's main Chinese website,
www.BBCChinese.com, which yesterday led with a story about US forecasts that Beijing's suppression of dissent could undermine national stability.
By contrast, the top item on the broadcaster's new
www.BBCChina.com.cn site was a Chinese-language news story on the much less sensitive topic - to Beijing officials at least - about the row surrounding cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed.
The website and the adoption of a domain name with the Chinese .cn ending mark a big step forward in the BBC's efforts to build a presence in one of the world's fastest growing media and education markets.
However, the decision to avoid including any of the broadcaster's often hard-hitting China coverage could expose it to charges of bowing to Beijing censors.
Google, the US internet search company, has been widely criticised for launching a local version of its service for the Chinese market that actively censors results that could anger the communist leadership.
Lorna Ball, head of the BBC Chinese service, said the site had not been adapted to avoid causing political offence and there had been no attempt to discuss it with Beijing.
The BBC had instead made the site "lively and exciting and appealing" to reach predominantly young people interested in learning English, Ms Ball said.
However, all the Chinese-language China-related news stories available on thesite yesterday appeared studiously uncontroversial, including interviews with a Chinese snooker champion and pop star and a report on the state visit to the UK of Hu Jintao, China's president.
The site does not have links to the main BBC web service. By focusing largely on English learning, the new site seeks to tap into a huge demand in China.
Andrew Thompson, head of English Language Teaching for the World Service, said about 200m Chinese were learning English.
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