Beijing has reiterated its long-standing rule of blocking foreign websites that are deemed harmful to Chinese morals and principles.

Lu Wei, China's Internet czar, said the country has the responsibility to protect its citizens from any website content that will run counter to their interests and blocking foreign websites is one way to implement that.

Like Us on Facebook

Foreign websites, including news sites and popular social media sites Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, are all currently banned in China.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is married to Chinese-American Patricia Chan, has been persistent in courting China to allow him to penetrate the Chinese Internet market.

Several tech companies have also been wanting to enter China and potentially make a killing out of its huge netizen population but China's heavy Internet censorship often disappoints them.

China is the world's second largest economy and several blocked tech companies want to look into a possible business growth in the mainland.

"I can't change you, but I have the right to choose my friends," Lu said at a rare news conference Wednesday.

"I indeed have to choose. We don't welcome those who come to China to make money while smearing China," he added.

Lu likened the internet business in China to a family. He said that the family doesn't accept unfriendly visitors as guests.

Lu denied heavily censoring online content saying that like other countries, they merely regulate it.

He pointed out that if indeed China is censoring the Internet, then why is China's Internet user population growing at such a fast rate.

At present, China has four million websites, 700 million Internet users, 1.2 billion mobile phone users, and 600 million WeChat and Weibo users.

Lu said everyday these users post 30 billion messages.

"It's simply impossible for any country or organization to censor 30 billion messages," he pointed out.

The czar said that not censoring doesn't mean there is no line to follow. He emphasized that crossing that line and violating the law will have consequences.

China's tech industry has thrived, creating heavily regulated Chinese versions of the blocked popular foreign websites. In place of Facebook, China has WeChat; For Google, there's Baidu, and for Twitter, the Chinese have Weibo.

Despite the seeming hard stance of China on foreign Internet companies, Lu is not at all discouraging Zuckerberg and other blocked website owners from doing business in China in the future.

He said that he welcomes all internet companies in the world to do business in China for as long as China's interests, as well as the Chinese user population, will not be harmed.

Tagscensorship, Instagram, foreign tech companies, China homegrown tech industry, Mark Zuckerberg, Lu Wei, the great firewall, China censorship