Opinion | China: No 1 enemy of internet freedom or the global champion of online technology?
Cary Huang says while Beijing is desperate to tap the internet for economic growth, it is waging a war to control its open nature. In the end, it will succeed in neither
Nothing better proves China’s communist leaders’ psychological ambivalence in policymaking than their treatment of the internet industry.
No other country has shown greater enthusiasm in developing this new industry. The Chinese leadership sees it as a new engine of growth, even introducing an Internet Plus plan last year to foster development of related industries.
Indeed, China has made great strides in the application of new technology. The world’s most populous nation and second-largest economy now also has the world’s largest army of internet users – 700 million, accounting for a quarter of the world’s total – and smartphone users – 563 million. China is also home to a host of world-beating internet companies, with Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, Tencent, Baidu and JD.com ranked among the world’s top 10.
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Chinese leaders want the conference to be the Davos of the internet world; they want to compete with the West in defining the norms of cyberspace.
Despite the global and open nature of the internet, the Chinese government has spared no effort in blocking the free flow of information across its borders through the “Great Firewall of China”, its colossal internet filtering and censorship apparatus.