China insists that despite recent decisions, like its move to ban all U.S. movie imports, it remains firmly against piracy of copyrighted material. 

China's top officials say that the increased internet usage, not an intentionally lax legal atmosphere, are responsible for making the country likely the world's largest nation in terms of not only population but also pirated copyrighted materials.  These same officials suggest the adoption of harsher punishments to discourage pirates.

Yan Xiaohong, deputy head of the National Copyright Administration, says cases in 2007 of piracy of copyrighted material more than doubled by government statistics due to an explosion of new technology and usage.  This made for difficulties in regulating internet traffic.  He acknowledged at a press conference that preliminary punishment methods had failed to strike a decisive blow, stating, "Although our rectification campaigns have had obvious initial results, we must clearly recognise that there has been no sea change for the better in our nation's Internet copyright protection environment."

He stated that he firmly believes harsher financial penalties and harsher sentences need to be developed.  He states, "As the situation is so serious we ought to give out heavier fines under the legal framework."

With 210 million internet users, China was second only to the U.S. in online population in 2007.  China's Xinhua news agency quoted industry sources stating that the nation will likely become the largest online population early in 2008.

Despite suffering from severe piracy, China does do a remarkable job regulating websites it feels inspire dissent.  A "Great Red Firewall" blocks users from such sites and alerts authorities of access attempts.  China plans to keep these efforts in place.

"We will put whatever police forces are needed into this," Deputy head of the Public Security Bureau's economic crimes division Gao Feng said, referring to internet "cleansing" plans for 2008, without further elaboration.

Sometimes the piracy and subversive materials boundaries overlap, for example in the case of Hong Kong and Taiwanese TV shows, which are among the most popular pirated items, but also are banned from national television by the government.

In an effort to curb rampant pornography viewing, China announced plans last month to only allow video content through sites which obtain state-issued licenses.  However, it has since offered virtually no details on this licensing, leaving many to wonder if it is even going to happen at all.

Chen Jiachun, vice-director of the Ministry of Information Industry's Telecom Management Bureau would only say, "We will choose an appropriate way to respond to questions from the media or society.  It will be very soon."

China's responses both illustrate an awareness about piracy, the reach of the internet, and also confusion about how to deal with it. This is something which troubles internet giants like Google, Yahoo, and Yahoo who depend on Chinese traffic and video content views.