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The Chinese government is calling on Internet service providers to sign a "self-discipline pact" meant to stop the spread of information that could harm national security as defined by Beijing.
This follows injunctions already in place restricting public internet cafés in the material they can serve, and the current policies for local ISP's where they must police the content they serve to remove various forms of content including those of a seditious or erotic nature.
The pact calls on Internet cafés to direct Web users to "healthy online information,"
One wonders who is to decide what "healthy online information" is and is not.
These policies surely has to have a major affect on local Chinese eCommerce and also foreign investment and participation in the local online economy. Of course the heavy-weights such as Yahoo and Google are investing in Chinese sites, presumably they have enough of a war chest to absorb losses should said investments go belly up, but these policies must have an affect on mid to smaller companies wanting to participate in this market.
One wonders whether the full ramifications of these policies have been thoroughly thought through, or whether the prime objectives of "national security" and "social stability" are the only concern.
Onya
Woz
To be honest, the average Mr & Mrs Chin are more concerned with survival and earning a living to be worried about distention amongst the ranks. It is the educated classes who use the net who are the target of this type of policy, and to a certain extent it does work.
I remember when I was living there and working via my internet connection, which is way before these policies came into place, I was very careful about the sites I visited, even to the point of ducking out of sites that even resembled the no no areas very quickly because there was always the nagging thought in my mind of who may or may not be watching my movements. The point is you don't know and, with the swift justice system, it is simply safer not to take any chances.
However, my main point is that along with these misguided attempts to retain control over the populace, the collateral damage in the tacit discouragement of foreign investment has to be hurting the country as a whole.
Onya
Woz
my main point is that along with these misguided attempts to retain control over the populace, the collateral damage in the tacit discouragement of foreign investment has to be hurting the country as a whole.
I don't see it this way at all. China is going through a period of massive change, and it seems to me that the government is trying to manage this change, and, when necessary, slow it down. The spectre of what happened to the USSR must be on their minds where a stable society was almost overnight turned into economic chaos. Not long ago they had to deal with the incorporation of Hong Kong which could easily have been the poisoned pill which destabilised the Chinese economy, and they did that pretty well.
Yes, they are heavy handed, but I don't see anything sinister in it. Greed will ensure that foreign investments continue to flow.
The tech community that studies things like "China's Great Wall" (their Internet firewall system) have observed them making smart moves at the expense of cost and expediency. It was rumored that China and Cisco developed the fastest router ever, specifically engineered to deconstruct packets for filtering and monitoring purposes. Capable of immense real-time operation, it would represent quite a feat of engineering R&D. Now we see Cisco releasing a product that appears to be based on "the China work", and it is real and it appears to be even faster than imagined.
China didn't just block everything or make a blacklist, and they didn't make a whitelist, and they didn't slow down progress so they could filter. They partnered with the world's best, and demanded that they push the envelope -- and it appears to have worked.
"China" Looks like a group that has vision and determination, a serious work ethic, and tremendous resources, which they are willing to put into R&D. I'd say that's quite impressive.
