China’s block & stop of information may be wearing thin.
From blocking info coming into the country by placing regulations on search engines such as Google, to stopping info going out of the country by shutting down blogs, to denying visas to foreign journalists who return to their home countries and dare to report truth, China’s censors must be exhausted.
So says The Atlantic’s Elizabeth Economy, in her piece entitled “Life is Getting Tougher for China’s Censors.” With a national security budget larger than their defense budget – which is pretty substantial – the country’s internet service providers are well-paid to do as they’re told.
Even so, the internet appears to be chipping away at China’s censorship power. Says Elizabeth Economy, ”It seems that even with all the time, money, and effort they expend to keep the dam from breaking, they are like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. The pressure behind the Great Wall just keeps mounting. All those people, all their interests, and all their voices just won’t stop coming.”
Do you think the internet will eventually blast China’s censorship wall to smithereens?
Or has China’s government maintained control for so long that the internet is no match for their all-seeing eyes?
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I heard a wise man who was a veteran of the Korean War describe nearly being overrun by Chinese troops. He made the point that if you took all the Chinese people and marched them two by two into the sea, the line would never end. Now that law of large numbers is working against the Chinese. There are simply too many ways to disseminate information in our modern technological world. There is no stopping it! And that’s a good thing.
What an absolutely perfect analogy. The vast numbers which inflate them, also render them powerless against technology. Can’t wait to see how this plays out in the coming years…
I’m sure my spreading of my proxy sites among my favorite students isn’t making things any easier for China’s censors.
Haha! I use proxy sites, too – such fun! Monday, I’m in Canada…Tuesday, I’m in Finland…Wednesday, I’m in NJ in the morning, Fiji in the afternoon, and Australia for dinner! Funny thing is, when I was actually in India, many of my emails to my family & friends came up as originating from Iraq, and all my loved ones were crazy with worry that I was in a war zone. You must be giving China’s fun police a run for their yuan!
China is an anomaly. It progressed with capitalism and knowledge exchange on net but now seems going back to suppression. They can’t decide whether to go forward or backwards.
I wonder if the internet will decide things for them…?
juwannadoright and you and I agree. The net keeps all the windows of the world open and the light cannot be blocked. (blazing saddles – loved it !)
Yay!
“Blazing saddles”:
http://carldagostino.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/major-thomas-edison-leads-the-charge-of-the-lightbulb-brigade-by-carl-dagostino/
We’re all going to be part of a one-world government someday. So it eventually becomes a moot point – right? That is unless the one-world is run by China.
Which, judging by its growing power base & our declining one, it might well be.