BEIJING: China's tightly-controlled media on Saturday reported news of Egypt's president yielding to massive protests, but glossed over details of the popular uprising and emphasised the need to restore order.
Online discussion about the protests has been muffled since the turmoil began, in a sign that the unrest is worrying Beijing, which restricts content seen as a potential challenge to the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party.
Internet forums appeared firmly under the censors' control Saturday, while newspapers limited their coverage to the official Xinhua news agency's reports and avoided the underlying political factors and calls for democracy.
"Social stability should be of overriding importance," the English-language China Daily said in an editorial, adding that protests calling for President Hosni Mubarak to go had caused "havoc" and disrupted people's daily lives.
"It is hoped that the Egyptian military, government and its people will make every effort to maintain social stability and restore normal order," it added, echoing Beijing's official line on the unrest.
State television network CCTV briefly reported Mubarak's fall after nearly 30 years in power, with footage of protesters cheering.
The Beijing Youth Daily reported that Mubarak had stepped down, but did not mention the underlying grievances behind the 18 days of protest.
The Beijing News noted that hundreds of thousands of people were involved in the protest movement, emphasising that the country's vice-president had urged people "to return home and go back to work as soon as possible".
Since the beginning of the turmoil, China's coverage has stressed Cairo's lawlessness and the need for order.
China is extremely sensitive to any news involving social unrest.
Its leaders have faced mounting public discontent in recent years over issues including persistent reports of abusive government officials, environmental damage and now surging inflation.
At the beginning of the Egyptian turmoil, keyword searches on the protests returned no results on microblogs and reader discussion of news reports about Egypt was disabled on major portals.
A search under the word "Egypt" on the microblog of popular web portal sina.com this week yielded a message saying the search result could not be shown "based on the relevant laws, regulations and policies".
While state-run newspapers and television have reported on the events in Egypt and Tunisia, readers have not been allowed to post remarks. On web portal netease.com, a message this week said the comment section had been closed.
One dissident said this week that police in southwest China had barred activists from distributing leaflets about Egypt and Tunisia, deeming the news too sensitive.
China suppressed violent ethnic uprisings in Tibet and the mainly Muslim Xinjiang region of northwestern China in 2008 and 2009, while the Nobel Peace Prize won by dissident writer Liu Xiaobo in October also rattled Beijing.
Coverage of Liu's honour was limited to government denunciations of the Nobel committee while foreign TV coverage of the award ceremony in December was blacked out.
Beijing's reaction to the Egypt situation recalls similar curbs put in place during social upheaval in Eastern Europe a decade ago.
But the explosive growth of microblogs in China has emerged as a new challenge for censors seeking to control public discussion.
China blocked Twitter in 2009 after barring other high-profile foreign Internet services such as YouTube and Facebook.
However, several Chinese imitations have since filled the void and drawn an enthusiastic following from the country's 457 million Internet users.
Users have seized on the platform as a new avenue for mass discourse but controversial issues remain blocked, either directly by the government or by providers hoping to avoid trouble.
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