As a non-ethnic Chinese who's lived in China many years, the one thing that annoys me is the sweeping access restrictions on sites and blogs related to IT. The other points are fairly irrelevant to me personally.
In May 2009, the whole of blogspot was blocked, including through proxies, feeds, etc. Two months earlier (March), Youtube was blocked, but I never used it so I didn't care. Before that, from before the Olympics to the Youtube block, was 8 or 9 months of general internet freedom. Perhaps falun gong (and similar) and porno was blocked, I don't know. But there were no noticeable restrictions on IT-related sites and blogs. Even before the Olympics, when blogs were blocked, it was only temporary, and easy to get around it with proxies.
But since May 2009, the sudden change in internet policy affects me, and my online interest in IT. I'm not interested in porno or reading about human rights while living in China anyway. So these Great Firewall restrictions, instead of blocking just what needed to be blocked, blocked far too much, blocking what I wanted to access. Not only that, China being China, sites got blocked that had no reason to be, like http://www.python.org/download and subpages. Seems someone in the Firewall staff tried to hide their mischief by keeping the main www.python.org page available. But maybe I wrong, and no-one paid anyone, instead China's just decided to promote a closer-to-home Japanese-invented scripting language by blocking downloads of a European/American one.
Some would ask, why don't I get a VPN? So far, I can't be bothered, China's a cash economy so I don't have credit cards.
As for the other points:
(1) China protects its industries from foreign competition completely. James McGregor's "One Billion Customers" is the most readable book I've read on this subject. I'm not in China run a business. If I want to make money, I'll leave first and go live somewhere business-friendly.
(2) As swombat said in another thread "if I have a choice between the Chinese model of media copyright (i.e., no copyright protection) and the US one, I'll pick the Chinese one. It's a better starting point for improvement than the current US model."
I wouldn't know where to buy or watch a legal English-language movie in China anyway, I don't think they have them outside Jingapore (=what we who live outside Beijing call it).
(3) I just assume my internet-connected PC is being accessed remotely, or at least my emails being read. At one place I lived, I was given a new phone which could listen while it was on the hook. I didn't bother complaining, they could just say it must be from a faulty batch. If I really need to keep some information private, I'll go live in a Western country.
(4) As for currency manipulation, looks like the US and China are in a deadly embrace. By the time it unwinds, the Euro will be the big winner, which was what the Euro was really about in the first place, wasn't it?
(5) Re human rights, if I decide to take an interest in that subject, I'll leave China and return to my home country and begin there. No need to preach to others while there's plenty of problems at home.
In May 2009, the whole of blogspot was blocked, including through proxies, feeds, etc. Two months earlier (March), Youtube was blocked, but I never used it so I didn't care. Before that, from before the Olympics to the Youtube block, was 8 or 9 months of general internet freedom. Perhaps falun gong (and similar) and porno was blocked, I don't know. But there were no noticeable restrictions on IT-related sites and blogs. Even before the Olympics, when blogs were blocked, it was only temporary, and easy to get around it with proxies.
But since May 2009, the sudden change in internet policy affects me, and my online interest in IT. I'm not interested in porno or reading about human rights while living in China anyway. So these Great Firewall restrictions, instead of blocking just what needed to be blocked, blocked far too much, blocking what I wanted to access. Not only that, China being China, sites got blocked that had no reason to be, like http://www.python.org/download and subpages. Seems someone in the Firewall staff tried to hide their mischief by keeping the main www.python.org page available. But maybe I wrong, and no-one paid anyone, instead China's just decided to promote a closer-to-home Japanese-invented scripting language by blocking downloads of a European/American one.
Some would ask, why don't I get a VPN? So far, I can't be bothered, China's a cash economy so I don't have credit cards.
As for the other points:
(1) China protects its industries from foreign competition completely. James McGregor's "One Billion Customers" is the most readable book I've read on this subject. I'm not in China run a business. If I want to make money, I'll leave first and go live somewhere business-friendly.
(2) As swombat said in another thread "if I have a choice between the Chinese model of media copyright (i.e., no copyright protection) and the US one, I'll pick the Chinese one. It's a better starting point for improvement than the current US model."
I wouldn't know where to buy or watch a legal English-language movie in China anyway, I don't think they have them outside Jingapore (=what we who live outside Beijing call it).
(3) I just assume my internet-connected PC is being accessed remotely, or at least my emails being read. At one place I lived, I was given a new phone which could listen while it was on the hook. I didn't bother complaining, they could just say it must be from a faulty batch. If I really need to keep some information private, I'll go live in a Western country.
(4) As for currency manipulation, looks like the US and China are in a deadly embrace. By the time it unwinds, the Euro will be the big winner, which was what the Euro was really about in the first place, wasn't it?
(5) Re human rights, if I decide to take an interest in that subject, I'll leave China and return to my home country and begin there. No need to preach to others while there's plenty of problems at home.