China is defending its right to block Web sites that it feels break its laws.

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry says certain sites had breached Chinese laws by recognizing "two Chinas" -- meaning self-ruled Taiwan. The official wouldn't say whether any Web sites had been censored.

China has been accused of restarting the practice that it stopped during the Olympic Games in August. China agreed to stop blocking the sites as part of a promise to extend media freedoms. The BBC reported this week that China seems to have banned several foreign Web sites recently, including its Chinese language news site and Voice of America in Chinese.