Eric's Beijing Diary

Fascinating editorial in the China Daily today. Seems the Chinese government is up in arms about news that the Americans may have developed a way to make it possible for Chinese people to connect to the Internet without using local infrastructure. I am skeptical, but what caught my attention is this sentence:

"It is feared that the product will be used to help dissidents in countries where governments have strong control over cyberspace."

It is feared? Feared by whom? Certainly not the netizens of China. I never heard any of them expressing their terror over having easier access to information.

This is entertaining. China is terrified that someone may invent a way for Chinese people to get around the Great Firewall of China, thus making it harder for the Chinese government to control the flow of information. I have news for them. It's already happening, and it isn't being done from outside. China's increasingly restrictive policies have motivated enterprising Chinese young people to look for workarounds. The Great Firewall is slowly eroding, and there is nothing China can do about it.

Except deny it. A government official recently made a complete fool of himself by saying that "Supervision and management of ideology and new media in Western countries is far stricter than that in our China." He was promptly pilloried online by young Chinese Internet users, who openly mocked his comments.