Times on China Internet censorship

The Shanghai bureau chief called me about this in January after Zhao Zhiyang died. I'm actually quoted in the article.

The PRC government is expending a lot of resources on this, and is in many ways quite successful. But, around the edges, there is no stopping the flow of information. While there is no effective political organization in China beyond the government, ordinary people (or, at least, the few hundred million people with direct or indirect access to the Internet) have greater and greater access to uncensored information.

Fairly soon the expectations of the average person in China for democracy and personal freedom will be no different than in other parts of the world. There will be a consensus view that it is "normal" for the government to implement democratic reforms, if only in a gradual way.

Expectations for better governance are increasing everywhere (well, perhaps not in the US ;-) As shown in Georgia, Ukraine and Lebanon, fewer and fewer soldiers are willing to shoot peaceful demonstrators in support of an unpopular government, and the demonstrators know this. Perhaps satellite TV deserves as much credit for this as the Internet, but both are playing an important role.

An interesting (and optimistic) quote from the article: "All of the big mistakes made in China since 1949 have had to do with a lack of information," said Guo Liang, an Internet expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "Lower levels of government have come to understand this, and I believe that since the SARS epidemic, upper levels may be beginning to understand this, too."