It’s hard not to read this story from yesterday’s New York Times and conclude that the journalist and paper are internally petrified that the place of America in the world is decreasing, its influence waning: China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker…
Showing all posts tagged China
“Very limited” web blocking in China, says a clueless Bill Gates
Microsoft founder Bill Gates seems a little too keen to keep the Chinese authorities as friends by grossly ignoring the Communist state’s sophisticated censorship program: You’ve got to decide: do you want to obey the laws of the countries you’re in or not? If not, you may not end up doing business there. Chinese efforts…
China’s future isn’t a place we should emulate
A new book about China set in 2013, mirroring George Orwell’s 1984, imagines a set of national strategies: 1. Democratic dictatorship under one-party rule; 2. Rule-of-law with stability as top priority; 3. An authoritarian government which rules for the people; 4. A state-controlled market economy; 5. Fair competition dominated by state-owned enterprises; 6. Scientific development…
How vulnerable is Gmail to Chinese meddling?
The role of the Chinese regime in hacking sensitive information just became even creepier: Reporters Without Borders is deeply disturbed and outraged by cyber-attacks on the Google E-mail accounts of several Beijing-based foreign journalists. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) sent its members a note today alerting them that at least two foreign news…
Google’s likely China departure causes waves of debate
A key reason behind Google’s announcement this week that it will probably leave China was allegedly due to human rights concerns: Google moved quickly to announce that it would stop censoring its Chinese …service after realising dissidents were at risk from attempts to use the company’s technology for political …surveillance, according to a source with…
What is Google now doing in China?
My following article appears today on ABC Unleashed/The Drum: Google has threatened to withdraw entirely from China in protest at the authoritarian regime’s oppressive online censorship and continuing attempts by Chinese hackers to gain sensitive information of local human rights workers. Perhaps most significantly, Google’s Chinse search engine, Google.cn, now allows once banned material to…
Should we fear China?
With news that Google is threatening to leave China over its oppressive censorship and hacking systems, this news (which is impossible to verify) is either scare-mongering on a massive scale or signs of a brave new world: A classified FBI report indicates that China has secretly developed an army of 180,000 cyberspies that “poses the…
What do Israel and China have in common?
When Israel and its blind supporters accuse any critics of anti-Semitism – the latest shameful example, this time in Canada, is reported here – it’s easy to claim that Zionists are the masters of crying wolf. Then a story like this appears and it’s hard to know what to think, other than Israel’s enemies are…
Fighting Australia’s impending web censorship farce
An important letter sent by Reporters Without Borders: The Hon Kevin Michael Rudd Prime Minister Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Australia Paris, 18 December 2009 Dear Prime Minister, Reporters Without Borders, an organisation that defends free expression worldwide, would like to share with you its concern about your government’s plan to introduce a mandatory Internet…
From the crazy file: Beijing has to stop Israel bombing Iran?
If true (and it’s impossible to know with anonymously-sourced stories), Israel is like a wild child that nobody can seemingly control (despite the fact that Washington pays to keep the lights on): U.S. President Barack Obama has warned his Chinese counterpart that the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian…