How about just disconnect the Chinese internet...

Riffing a little on an ars technica thinkpiece, Chinese Army newspaper calls for military role in Internet culture war, and some of the comments therein, how about it? I mean, serious effort is put into raising civilian internet borders - Facebook, Youtube, Google, and others many and numerous are unavailable - why not just unplug the whole thing? What real difference would it make?

Yes, you'd have to make phone calls again. You couldn't email your children while they study abroad. So what? There was a time exchanges in communication took months to arrive - they called them letters. Meanwhile, what else goes missing if all Chinese networks can no longer communicate outside the physical border? No more hacking. No more cultural poisoning. Would it not actually create a genuinely healthy, or at least non-foreign, form of networked, mono-lingual communication?

And from outside of China, who would care? Business operations would have to go back to telephones and faxes, but so what? (Email makes you more productive? Bullshit.) And other than business waffle, do Chinese websites get a lot of international traffic anyway?

Is there any genuine reason to keep the cables hooked up?

Technology and business have advanced considerably since faxes were the primary method for sending documents.  Successful companies aren't going to go back willingly.  If one country does it, that country will lose out on international business.

Two big companies already doing business can temporarily fall back onto phone and fax.  Email is for much more than just chitchat.  Are you going to fax a 3D CAD file with .01 cm tolerances to a factory and expect to get a reasonable facsimile of what you need.  Don't forget, China post has issues with outbound data storage devices (such as CDs) and could also delay inbound packages containing disks or flash drives.  I suppose I could track the courier packages containing that critical data.  Let's see,  I'll just head over to the postal or shipping company's website, enter the tracking code, and slit my wrists since there's no way to get the data after the package reaches the border.

So, I can courier over the file and pray it doesn't get delayed, or I can email the file to different manufacturers in Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. today and have a quotes for 10 container loads waiting in my morning email.

Individuals and companies looking for a company to do business with will want to see a website as part of the selection process.  Are all Chinese companies all going to send an IT person out of the country and evaluate how the website looks based on faxes and phone calls?  Will foreign companies wanting to do business in China do the same in reverse?

International businesses (and business persons) will often need online access to Chinese and non-Chinese banks.  So, I get out the security key, type in the bank's website, and

If you want to see how well this works, just wait for Putin to have another temper tantrum about something insulting him on the internet (If I'm super-lucky, this post will be the tipping point for this grand experiment  ) and cut Russia off from the internet.  Rumor has it that he's already laid the groundwork to be able to do this very quickly.  I'd give it about a month before international business with Russia (with the limited exception of oil contracts) grinds to a near-total halt.

So, I could see China changing which sites it blocks, but I don't see any possibility of a total internet blockade.  The people in Beijing are too smart to upset an applecart that so much of industry relies on.

Well, yeah. But it's not at all like any administration at any level in China is somehow unwilling to cause disruption and delay. Like right now for instance. How many international universities do *not* use gmail as their contact point for, say, application by foreign students? Or for instance, can any company wanting to do any kind of internet business in China rely on *not* locating servers in China? Etc and so on. Where does China draw the line of inconvenience? What really stops the various administrations insisting on maximum inconvenience across borders? Why not turn off all outside connections? It'd hurt. But would it wound anything "China" truly cares for? If every network within the relevant borders continued doing what it was supposed to do, and the fundamental interest of the nation were not critically undermined, then why not pull the plug?

I'm looking not so much for some objective fundamental interest, because after all we can't go around saying there is some interest different from that expressed by those who are sovereign here, but finding out what they really want would be good.

I suspect the internet for China is a resource, one they plunder. Now, this may just be international news media propaganda talking through my fingers, but I don't see what China contributes to "a global system of interconnected networks." China, it seems to me, is poor in everything except manual labour and hot cash. For them, network connections beyond the border function mostly as mine tunnels into foreign infrastructure bearing such riches as operational data and IP. These connections aren't much of a communication tool outside the language group, and do they show off properties valuable to anyone on the outside? There is, supposedly, huge potential value in China, big social networks and so forth - or at least it would be potential if there were ways to communicate, but there aren't.

Is there anything to admire here? What do they give back? It's not the case that "the west" somehow owns all the sophisticated institutions that make it a developed world. It's not the case that China owes some dues for all the forms they copy. If, say, car design IP is stolen, they owe for that. But do they owe anything for taking to cars themselves? Do they owe anything for copying, say, forms of law? Nope, probably not. Oddly, if it were the west copying China, it seems like Chinese, or some Chinese, might say, yeah, you owe something to China for that. China invented gunpowder, etc.

But with all this stuff that's being ripped off, what is China sharing in return? What I mean is, why wouldn't they just shut down the communication channels? What fundamental interest would be hurt? If they're not sharing good stuff now, how are they offering anything later?

It doesn't really matter how a country uses or abuses the internet.  The plain fact is that businesses that are to compete globally can't roll the clock back 20+ years and expect to remain nearly as competitive.  The people upstairs have gone to great efforts to make sure the country's businesses are as competitive as possible.  One sign of this is that despite all the other inconveniences thrown in the way of the services of the world's largest search engine, there's no issue in China sending/receiving emails from g mail.  The only issue is checking such an account from inside of China.  Blocking all such traffic would be simple, but too many companies doing business with China use g mail.

As for what locals use the internet for, I believe it's exactly the same as in all other countries.   Chatting, playing games, and looking at items that qualify as naughty.  Most of the more useful items I see online are from corporations or non-profits, not from governments.

So it's just the flashy, sparkly parts of the internet being blocked? The p0rny bits and the freedom words? Meanwhile, business goes on?

(a) how many Chinese businesses are multinational?
(b) how many non-Chinese multinationals find the Chinese management environment functional?

I'm under the impression few Chinese businesses are properly multinational, and if they are, it's because they're in Africa. Lots and lots of Chinese businesses export, but that's different.

I'm also under the impression multinational businesses are saying working in China includes many frustrations that seem unnecessary.

I'm furthermore under the impression the Chinese internet is generally slower than it needs to be. It's technically crippled.

Nothing really points to any Chinese administration wanting freer trade. Trade, sure. but I don't see any Chinese company aiming to be internationally competitive. I'm not up on the minutiae of international business news so I may be slandering a range of companies right now, but my impression is protectionism is the rule of the day, not competition. And it doesn't seem like there's any obvious reason for China to change that. being "competitive" means losing out to basically any country with an even moderately sophisticated economic regime. What does China compete on anyway? Not even cheap labour anymore. China's moved into the lower middle income zone and doesn't have the omph to move out... unless there's a great steaming pile of protection thrown up around every business so it can "develop".

If there were any international impetus, any desire to "go out" and start dismantling roadblocks, that could change. But it doesn't feel like China operates that way at all.

Wal-Mart employs more people in China than every Chinese company combined employs in the US

[...]

Of course, the numbers shouldn’t surprise us; it makes sense that there is far more US investment in China than the other way around, since the US has more capital and China offers better returns.

But the direct comparison can make it hard to sell Americans on the benefits of having all that capital freely slosh around the world.

There’s no doubt that trade has helped Americans via Wal-Mart itself—the imported goods Wal-Mart sells are cheaper typically than what’s made in the US, and the return on Wal-Mart’s operations in China benefits the company’s US stockholders. But when it comes to Chinese capital supporting US jobs, the effect is still small.

You need to rethink multinational.  Some Chinese companies are truly multinationals with offices in multiple countries.  Many more exist for the primary purpose of providing products to export to foreign companies.  So, if you needed injection molded plastic widgets, computer chips, or sweaters and you could send your product specs by email to 99% of the countries in the world or by fax to one country, would you even bother with the fax machine?

That great wall of flames is annoyingly inconvenient at times, but is designed to minimize interference with international trade.

I think you might have missed the recent announcement about internet speeds in China.  All internet service providers are jacking up their minimum speeds for new and existing customers.  My first DSL line was recently changed to faster fiber optic for no fee.  The fiber optic just went from 10 mbps to 20 within the last 2 weeks without me needing to request it.  I can either reset the contract or wait until the current one expires to get 50 mbps for no additional cost.  My other DSL line is about to shift to fiber optic as part of the ramp up (but that ISP is going to hit me up for 100 RMB for the fiber optic modem).  Although the ISPs compete, this is too well coordinated to be happening without some strong encouragement from the Bureau of Surfing.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2012/07/10-china-multinationals-shambaugh

When these companies are ranked by foreign assets and sales, it becomes clear that, with few exceptions, they all operate predominantly within China.

vs

http://www.numberof.net/number%C2%A0of%C2%A0mncs%C2%A0in%C2%A0china/

How many MNCs are there in China?

289,661.

There are currently 289,661 multinational companies (MNCs) in China: 3,429 parent corporations and 318,355 affiliates (source: The World Investment Report 2009, issued by the UNCTAD ‘“ United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). China’™s FDI (foreign direct investment) inflow in 2008 amounted to over US$108 billion, 48% more than two years earlier.



The news I've been seeing about increasing internet speeds is, the Chinese social mediots don't believe it. Some fluff piece I saw recently polled (or reported chat by) Chinese social media users saying the ISP speed increases were a sham. The advertised numbers may be rising, but actual speeds come in at a fraction of what's advertised. (The point of the piece was this is always true, even in America, but that in America, the real available fraction of the speed your ISP advertises is usually relatively consistent, and usually a larger fraction than what you end up with on a Chinese ISP.)

Plus, I go looking for "multinationals in China", the number I get, it takes me a while to realise mncs "in" China probably means the number of foreign companies in China, not the number of multinationals that come *from* China.

And then there're articles like:
China loses its allure
U.S. companies feel a chill in China, even as many still rake in profits

Companies can make money in China if they do something China can't or do something China wants. Which is kind of "Duh!" but it used to be that China wanted everything and could do nothing (that wasn't primary industry). Now that China can halfway do for itself, what's it going to do for everyone else?

Natturally, rated internet speeds are for when everyone else going through the local switching office has taken a break from playing online games.  Still, the increases in speed are significant.  bandwidthplace.com shows me getting 12.88 mbps downloads from Shenzhen on my 20 mbps fiberoptic line - which was rated at 10 mbps a couple of weeks ago.  I wonder what a claimed 50 mbps connection will yield?

Claims of China losing it's allure only reinforce my premise.  China used to have very little competition.  Now even Chinese companies are outsourcing south of the border.  Whacking the countries internet would be incredibly damaging to the exports which are already facing stiffer and stiffer competition.  Add in the extra problems this will cause for overseas companies feeding their products to China's growing appetite for imports and we can all party like it's 1969.

Wealth comes from businesses.  Employment of workers comes from business.  China may try to control information, but no one upstairs is going to wreck the economy by forcing all cross-border business communications back in time 25 or 30 years.

Claims of China losing it's allure only reinforce my premise.  China used to have very little competition.  Now even Chinese companies are outsourcing south of the border.  Whacking the countries internet would be incredibly damaging to the exports which are already facing stiffer and stiffer competition.  Add in the extra problems this will cause for overseas companies feeding their products to China's growing appetite for imports and we can all party like it's 1969.

There's something in that intuition that is close to where I'm trying to go with these questions. (Unfortunately, I don't know all that clearly where I'm trying to go with these questions.) There is some set of conditions coming. I don't know that it'll be a crisis per se. But there's some new collection of requirements that are coming along with this rising prosperity, or change in competitive conditions, that's sort of a "shit or get off the pot" moment. It'll be where China has to actually make that choice (and others like it): cut off the internet or quit screwing around. That's when China will show some truish colours. I think, of that time, that, for instance, loss of wealth isn't going to be a factor in those colours. That is, loss of societal wealth won't be a factor. Loss of personal wealth will annoy or hurt, but for the people governing the institutions of this society, it could be they won't come down on the side of economic forces qua political system. The US would, and does. In the US people talk about economics as if it describes valuable structures of society. But it doesn't. The society or at least the people managing the institutions of society have to accept economic principles as meaningful and substantial. And, perhaps what I suspect is this: China doesn't.

More likely, the rest of the world will keep heading in China's direction.  The number of countries that have filters on selected corners of the internet continues to grow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_surveillance_by_country

I do worry what will happen as this escalates, but unless some country is ready to trash their own economy, cutting off international email access is highly unlikely (excluding that place run by CrazyKim the Third).

How about looking at it from the other side: what would encourage China to be less protectionist?

Surveillance is surveillance, of course. But management of the internet, as surveillance and restriction in China is so often termed, is inherently protectionist. They are, at least as the rhetoric would have it, guarding some fledgling something from the ravages of external forces of other. And if the opposite of protectionism is whatever condition allows whatever forces exist to find their way to equilibrium by themselves, then what would encourage China to do that?

Friggen nothing, basically.

Hmmmnn... I wonder how many other countries that block certain social sites will take the hint and make their own domestic versions.