More on China and Google

Sunday's Washington Post had an excellent article about China and the censoring of the Internet. In short, the article argues that "widespread Internet use in [China's] largest cities and among the educated is changing the way Chinese learn about the world and weakening the Communist Party's monopoloy on the media." How is this possible? Doesn't the Chinese government censor the Internet? Doesn't Google help the Communist Party do this, in a nefarious attempt to make money at all costs?

The article writes that "the success of those [censorship] measures has been mixed. ...the Internet presents a formidable challenge to China's authoritarian political system." Just having access to the Internet, even if it's under governmental control, makes it more difficult to keep information out. And the more information flows into China, the better. So, as I've said before, chastising, punishing, or preventing Google from bringing the Internet into China, even if they have to collaborate with the Communist Party to do so, is extremely short-sighted.