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China Lifts Bans On Social Media, Foreign ISPs In Free Trade Zone
hackingbear writes "Beijing has made the landmark decision to lift a ban on internet access within the Shanghai Free-trade Zone to foreign websites considered politically sensitive by the Chinese government, including Facebook, Twitter and newspaper website The New York Times. The new free trade zone would also welcome bids from foreign telecommunications companies for licenses to provide internet services within the new special economic zone to compete with the state-owned China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom; the big three telcos didn't raise complaints as they knew it was a decision endorsed by top Chinese leaders including Premier Li Keqiang, who is keen to make the free-trade zone a key proving ground for significant financial and economic reforms, the sources added. The decision to lift the bans, for now, only applies to the Zone and not elsewhere in China. 'In order to welcome foreign companies to invest and to let foreigners live and work happily in the free-trade zone, we must think about how we can make them feel like at home. If they can't get onto Facebook or read The New York Times, they may naturally wonder how special the free-trade zone is compared with the rest of China,' said one of the government sources who declined to be named due to the highly sensitive nature of the matter."
Keep it coming.
Good ol' US of A has "Free Speech Zones" for certain things.
Silence is a state of mime.
Haven't 'free trade zones' always been about the relaxation of certain local restrictions in the interest of attracting commercial activity? And isn't turning a blind eye to the activity of economically useful foreigners (so long as they aren't too tacky about it, and don't start mouthing off about local politics) a downright venerable tradition?
If anything, this looks like another aspect of China's gradual evolution toward a 'repress smarter, not harder' theory of censorship, where they've gradually relaxed assorted easy-but-grating blanket bans as their technology and techniques have allowed them to get the results they want without as many (upsetting for the user) overt and visible exercises of state power. The most effective controls are the ones you never even notice.
Well, to be fair, the US you can visit any website you want. Unless it's gambling. Or "promotes terrorism". But you know, other than the things that are illegal, everything is legal!
I'll stain my knickers when the Gov. mows down citizens and students for not being "Politcally correct."
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
If you actually cared, you wouldn't post as an AC, which makes you invisible to anyone hiding zero-rated comments (probably most people) unless mods find and up-rate you.
I don't think there is any prohibition on gambling or terrorism sites. You can visit them, you just can't give them money.
Life expectancy doubled 1949-1985
Food poverty fell from 270m in 1948 to 100m in 1985 to almost 0 today
Rural real standard of living per capita has been rising 6.7% per annum. In urban areas 5.5%
Clothing styles have changed as now everyone has adequate clothing for a generation and fashion drives consumer choice
Square feet of living area per person is up about 50% and the quality of housing is much higher
Education in the urban areas is readily available and in rural areas is now often readily available. As contrasted with a few generations ago where education was hard to get.
Why shouldn't the Chinese people think their government has their best interest at heart? They are seeing everyday evidence of their government working to make their lives better. As contrasted with the US where the government has pursued a stagnant wage policy for over a generation.
I was over there on a business trip, and stayed at one of the top hotels in town. Not sure how they arranged it, but I was able to get to all the sites that I'm told are blocked by the "Great Firewall". Didn't have to bother opening a VPN tunnel back to my office.
This hotel was part of a famous multi-national chain. Not sure if a Chinese hotel in the same price range would have the same ability.
China Unicorn. Does it fart rainbows?
And we'll just skip over the "let 100 flowers blossom" of the cultural revolution...
This is just to facilitate spying. A great way to see who is visiting which sites.
Funny thing is, on Solidot, GP anon would be rated 5, and jbolden would be rated -1.
The common sentiment on Chinese social media would also corroborate those ratings.
A little comparing your own underbelly with other's best faces, plus some cultural ignorance, and you get comedy like this on both sides of the ocean.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
That may be true. I'll plead guilty to ignorance. But what do you think is a more fair description?
The Great Firewall seems inconsistent. Sometimes I was blocked on 3G from visiting Twitter, FB other times not. Wifi was spotty as well, but usually blocked. I used a VPN to access the Internet most of the time. But keeping the VPN up was tricky. Using the Internet in China was absolutely useless as a Westerner trying to get anything done. Such a weird place, they have a maglev train but you can't drink the water. #priorities
ralphbarbagallo.com
>Why shouldn't the Chinese people think their government has their best interest at heart? They are seeing everyday evidence of their government working to make their lives better. As contrasted with the US where the government has pursued a stagnant wage policy for over a generation.
Because people still get poisoned and sometimes die when some food manufacturer puts adulterants in the product to save money. Just last week I found an article about how all kinds of meats that would be considered undesirable in the USA were being faked into being "beef". There's also the fact that the government is pretty darn corrupt at all levels and rule of law and property rights aren't respected. There's the fact that for the first time Communist Party leaders are becoming rich and their children are being simply given the spoils of wealth just by virtue of birth. Yes, some thing are better for sure, but you better believe that among educated and internet savvy people there that they know that things could also be a whole lot better. If you're rich, you can do almost anything you want. If you're ordinary, the rules that you may not like still apply to you.
Endorse communism then we can become communistic too, copornistic is not much different.
China simply proves that it is not as bad a Iran in blocking places where anyone can speak against it. While China gives freedom intentionally, Iran did it by error.
That is exactly what seems to be keeping China together. Capitalist economy but no Twitter. Deal is good.
He's now -1 and ignored by more people.
A lot of big, western companies — like mine — already provide our own internet infrastructure and have access to the internet at large. All of our employees are free to read the New York Times, American version of Google, or have FaceBook accounts. And if we don't mind going through the company servers for stuff at home, the company VPN works everywhere in China.
The point of this move in the FA, though, is that China will license private ISP's to provide this service to anyone or company in the free trade zones. *This* would be of great convenience, and I wish I were in this zone. I use China Telecom now and have 50 Mbs fiber service. It's fast as hell and dirt cheap (by American standards), but my connection slows to a crawl as soon as I start routing all of my traffic through a single, private VPN pipe to Germany or California or Sweden.
--Jim (me)