Mr. Shangkong | China to pay price for 'closed-internet' policy
Thinking everything will look good by blocking online access may sound too simple and naive
History always repeats, just sometimes in different ways.
The so-called "closed-door" policy of the Qing government closed Chinese people's minds for about a century. Now, the more ironic question will be how long Beijing's "closed-internet" policy will last.
For many foreigners living or travelling in the mainland, last week they were surprised to find their long-time trick to skirt online censorship of popular websites through virtual private network (VPN) services could not work anymore.
The mainland media quickly confirmed the government decided to upgrade its censorship technology to block all VPN tools except for a few institutional users, who can get a permit from Beijing.
Censorship on the mainland is nothing new to the world. From Beijing's viewpoint, it can help the government block or remove information that it believes is harmful to the development of the socialistic society in the country. But who can define what information is harmful or not?
The websites of the South China Morning Post, together with dozens of leading international media outlets, have been blocked from accessing the mainland for years. Does that mean most of the international media is "harmful" for Chinese readers?