admin!

I don’t usually do this sort of thing, so indulge me. Also, I’ve been twittering on about it. But today we had a couple of traffic drivers.

First: Andrew Sullivan linked to James’ post on Norwegian prison conditions. B & T has had the odd link from big traffic American blogs before. It’s fun: you lean back and surf the wave and then it goes and you’re back to square one.

Shortly after that, we were registering incoming from addresses at renren and weibo, linking to the post on Breivik’s opinions about China. That was more like swimming along and suddenly finding a whale surfacing underneath you. And then going away again, etc, etc.

One thing: you can’t trace those links back. Click on them and you go to the registration page. There’s no direct communication. B&T got a very small taste of the edge of the Sinosphere today. And the general strategy of the Chinese government is to sequester the largest subsection of internet usage to the country it originates from on the grounds that this prevents users from being contaminated by “foreign” ideas.

But I wonder what would happen if the regime just let everybody loose to forage, saying what they pleased, going where they wanted, and judging international events from their own perspectives. Whatever the direct political outcome, I think you would in some senses have a more sinicised world in the sense of a world forced by sheer intensity of chatter to take more interest in Chinese perpsectives. Why doesn’t the CPC want to use its own best weapon?

Comments

[nathan]

Thats a really good question.
I can only think of crude starting points.

awareness of internal opposition that would use the opportunity to organise before the other stuff happend ?

lack of self confidence/awareness ?

concern that it would provoke anti sino backlash - " they really are taking over !"

[Neil]

Lobbying from 50-center type companies, perhaps?

I doubt they'd want to see their work being done for free.

[Neil]

(of course that assumes said companies can go to the government and ask for access to a certain site so they can do their stuff. Is that beyond the realms of possibility?)

[ajay]

In answer to the question, "because they are more concerned about maintaining 'good order' in China than they are about achieving Chinese diplomatic and foreign policy objectives".

[john b]

Ajay wins at both "accuracy" and "obvious when you come to think of it". The gentlemen in charge of the filter are not the same gentlemen who are in charge of PR.

[ajay]

Also I would like to take issue with the idea that lifting the filter would necessarily do much for China's profile in the world.
While it is of course true that we are doing much to raise the reputation of our countries through our sober, reasoned discourse on this blog and elsewere, we are, alas, not representative. Lifting the filter might not lead to the larger net being overrun by a swarm of Chinese john bs and ajays and Ranters and Ken MacLeods, but rather by a swarm of Chinese Serdar Argics and Instapundits and Little Green Wontons.

[ajay]

Better to keep silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt, after all.

[Alex]

That would be the original case of "China exports its internal chaos", right?

[belle le triste]

Slightly off-topic, what's the Schlachtenbummler read on the Russian DDoS attack on LiveJournal? Beyond the obvious fact that Medvedev is a big Deep Purple fan and hence loves/hates Goths (my circle of friends were very divided on which way the "hence" pointed... )

It was down for nearly a week.

[Barry Freed]

Hasn't that happened before? Last spring IIRC and maybe even before that.

[belle le triste]

Yes, it's not new, but I don't remember it being down for anything like so long before.

[Cian]

Beyond the obvious fact that Medvedev is a big Deep Purple fan and hence loves/hates Goths

Say what?