Why a rising China needs to raise its internet shutters
Ker Gibbs says information isolation benefits few, whether in scientific and manufacturing innovation or trade, and the country’s developmental goals call for a reassessment of the barrier mentality
China’s hosting of the G20 summit allows it to help set the agenda for global financial cooperation over the next year or two. China is also demonstrating leadership in other areas. On climate change, its commitment to clean energy shows foresight that many Western nations would do well to emulate. But, as China’s economy continues to develop, the government’s internet doctrine puts it at odds with many of its G20 counterparts.
Over the course of history, trade has flourished on the back of a free flow of information. It allows sellers and buyers to make informed decisions, financiers to better comprehend risk. Today, it helps scientists learn from the failures and successes of peers elsewhere. Basic research in the UK leads to a drug made in the US that saves lives in China – it’s a modern but already proven path. Yet just as China transitions from a manufacturing-led economy to one centred on information and innovation, the government is shuttering China from the rest of the world.
All news stories must be verified, China’s internet censor decrees as it tightens grip on online media
Last year, 81 per cent of respondents to AmCham’s China Business Report survey said internet restrictions make it difficult to do business in China. And whether it is “secure and controllable” technology, data localisation or internet blocking, those barriers are multiplying. China’s isolation will have consequences, not just for foreign businesses, but for Chinese ones as well.
Double standards: China’s push to develop internet for economic gain tempered by strict censorship
Take China’s ambition for Shanghai to be a world-class financial centre by 2020. A cursory glance at other global financial centres – London, Tokyo and New York – throws up a number of qualities, including rule of law and regulatory transparency. What they also share is unrestricted access to information. Whether it is a trader’s ability to access Bloomberg or Reuters or a CEO’s to read the Wall Street Journal, these news sources are a click away in London or New York. Not so in Shanghai. In China’s universities, scientists are handicapped by their inability to access world-class research. Yet having access to databases or the latest available research may be crucial to their own endeavours to create the next life-saving cancer drug.
China blocks VPN services that let internet users get around censorship
Many large foreign companies in China utilise trunk lines that bypass the “Great Firewall”. But, in an innovation-led economy, it is often the research done in universities or by cash-strapped small start-ups that leads to clinical or industrial breakthroughs. These are the very same advances that are patented and commercialised, and then translate into thousands of jobs, as the US innovation experience clearly shows.
