“Private equity is a very good area for princelings because with these sorts of connections you can get into companies ahead of their IPOs and make a lot of money in a short space of time,” says Professor Victor Shih of Northwestern University. “It is an easy way to make money because everyone will be willing to back them because of their connections. Everyone will do it willingly in order to potentially get favours from senior leaders in return.”

… But the constant jockeying for position within the party behind closed doors in Beijing is set to intensify as the next big leadership transition approaches in 2012. Some analysts say the private equity activities of the more aggressive younger princelings could be used by political enemies as a weapon against their parents.

One could argue in defense of this sort of nepotism, since private equity is as relationship driven as anything is here, and these guys, quite reasonably from their perspective, see the most opportunity there. The articles are more interesting as an example of exactly what is blocked. Since the Chinese version isn’t available, even behind a VPN, it means that the FT removed it, potentially after a suggestion from the Ministry of Truth.

Normally, journalism that focuses on economic/financial topics can get away with more in terms of potentially sensitive topics. Magazines like Caijing built their reputations on pushing these boundaries. At times, though, someone hits a soft spot.

The first result is Baidu, Google’s former mainland rival. I suppose this would be a bit like Google returning Bing or Yahoo in a search for “STFU” or “f*** you.”

And one with a more lenient filter:

The second situation is more threatening from a freedom-of-information perspective, in that individuals interested in accessing only certain sensitive information will find ways to evade the firewall but never make the leap to having complete online freedom (certain proxies work at certain times for certain sites. A full VPN, on the other hand, typically requires actually paying for overseas bandwidth but also provides total access). Whether full access is worthwhile will depend on whether someone can satisfy enough of their preferences within the limited regime. Total information access might simply not be worth it.

To be fair, this discussion is already focusing on a minority of Chinese internet users. Most are completely happy to chat on QQ and pick digital crops with their Happy Farmer Friends, and could really care less about spending much time gathering news and information online. This minority is non-trivial, however, in the sense that they are more likely to be educated, and will be (if not already are) in decision making roles.

My prior assumption is that (even among the liberal educated minority) Zhou-everyman is much more interested in the seemingly banal (finding images of scantily clad women, say) than in fact checking recent news stories or looking up details of Tian@nmen.* If s/he is able to satisfy the first preference, then s/he will not spend much more effort to gain total access. Those who gain total access (for the purpose of the seemingly banal) also have the ancillary capacity to access other information; presumably the ultimate goal of freedom of information proponents.

Stark contrasts within the Chinese intranet vis-a-vis the global world wide web, then, might motivate a larger number of Chinese internet users to seek out total access to information. Providing stepping stones along the way could potentially harm long-term information exposure.

* Confirmation bias: after gaining access to a VPN, the first thing I did was look at lolcats and failblog, both of which are blocked. I have yet to access anything that would be considered extremely sensitive in the eyes of Chinese authorities. Frankly, F@lunG0ng is kind of boring.

She is of course correct: it is easier to find scantily clad people on Google than on Baidu, though this is due to the efficiency of Google’s search algorithms vis-a-vis Baidu, not simply because it’s foreign, and all foreigners are smutty (though that’s a fairly prevalent meme as well).

I often struggle with making interesting, lasting friendships with ‘locals,’ who I (intolerantly) define as Chinese nationals who don’t speak English and and have no strong interest to learn about global affairs. Were I able to do so effectively, it would be possible to gather more information on a broader range of perspectives.

As a result, expats living here often suffer from a ‘foreign-friendly-exposure’ bias, even if the interactions are conducted in Mandarin, for the simple reason that people are interested in talking to us are much more likely to be politically liberal. The only instances of lasting relationships with a ‘genuine local’ I know of are where people are able to substitute very specific interests (like making out) in place of the cultural gap. Sort of depressing that there seems to be no middle ground.

I believe that after reading this book, readers will understand, imperialism has never really gone away; it has just been reincarnated in a new form. So, what should we do? Chairman Mao once said a very important guideline: when illusion is lost, prepare for struggle!

我相信在读完本书之后，给位读者会了解，帝国主义从来没有消失过，他们只是以不同的形态借尸还魂罢了。那么，我们该怎么办呢？毛主席的一句话非常具有指导意义：丢掉幻想，准备头争！

Will report again if I read it cover to cover, at this point the text seems to focus on various reasons why American financial hegemony is extremely harmful to Chinese interests. American conservatives often point out that China owns ~USD2tr of Treasury Debt; Chinese conservatives lament that the American Treasury has a printing press. American conservatives say that free trade has hollowed out the American working class; Chinese conservatives say that free trade has forced Chinese laborers to manufacture products in exchange for increasingly worth less pieces of paper.

Even the NYT’s reporting on China often seems anecdotal at best, though certainly the quality of the work the publication delivers, given time and resource constraints, is impressive. However, every month or so there’s an article about Americans working in China, the latest of which concluded that ‘in some workplaces there are conflicts. If they happen while Americans are working in China, they must be due to cultural conflicts because China is strange and different.’ The article came off as under-researched, and played up broader narratives for the sake of mass appeal, such as when the author notes that “Chinese workers have a deeper understanding of the influences, like Confucianism and Communism, that play a part in their country’s culture and economy.” Sure these two systems existed at different points throughout Chinese history but they aren’t particularly relevant modes of discourse at present. It comes off as crass as writing “France’s Catholic history, a religious system that stresses a particular combination of guilt inducing mechanisms and flagellant self-sacrifice, has made the nation particularly amiable to the demands of the modern welfare state, unlike its Protestant neighbors.”

As for myself, I tend to have many more genuine cultural conflicts with people from the east coast of the US – they are tall and mean – whereas urban Chinese are polite and fun to talk to.

Ancient philosophers meh: Hunan claims to have mist-covered picturesque mountains similar to those featured in Avatar (English here), using the resemblance to draw tourists. The city of Zhangjiajie has renamed even named a local peak Avatar Hallelujah Mountain, the first two terms being phonetic transliterations (阿凡达哈利路亚, Afanda Haliluya) which just seems sort of wrong, though not quite Starbucks in the Forbidden City wrong. Popular culture will of course be interpreted in a local context, and instead of assimilation one should view these things as fusion. Perhaps we only wish the interpretations weren’t so crass. HT Ellie.

“Free flow of information is a prerequisite to participation in the global information economy.” Though I agree, I still try to find reasons to object, such that the inner-contrarian might be rationalized into submission. A basic argument: the U.S. and Europe made it through the industrial revolution without mass deployment of information technology. If modern China can get even halfway there, the country will eventually find itself on top, purely by the multiply-anything-by-1.4-billion characteristic.

Aside from that, it’s interesting to ponder how free-flow of information could be detrimental to democratic civil society or economic development. My underlying argument: if the costs of propagating information fall to near zero, information of any quality can be spread rapidly. Without an effective filter, finding accurate information quickly becomes impossible. Thus far the filters have managed to stay on top: effective search algorithms, aggregation sites and trend analytics. The rewards for creating friendly filters have outpaced the rewards for creating malicious propagation tools.

This hypothetical situation, where malicious (user generated) information outpaces efforts to filter, exists to a much larger extent within of the online-Sinosphere. It’s much easier to get lost in the noise and I cannot figure out if this is the result of

• a more open micro-system (users much more willing to trust and interact with complete strangers)
• a more closed meta-system (cens0ring certain information centralizes users’ preferences)

or the more mundane

• sophisticated noise is attributable entirely to very inexpensive labor (it’s very cheap to hire lots of people to say whatever you want them to). If the cost of doing this drops throughout the rest of the world (pseudo AI + spambot), it will result in a similar situation to the status quo here:

Maria writes of how online campaigns hire mass numbers of people to comment on certain topics, in order to draw attention to something that would otherwise go unnoticed. It’s possible, for example, to sell your account on Taobao (E-Bay) if you have a long history and positive customer reviews. As a result, customer reviews are rendered much less useful. This type of gaming occurs elsewhere, though not to this magnitude. In China, the prices of conducting such manipulation aren’t, at present, particularly high, especially with regard to the rewards that can be gained. She concludes that since the threat of media manipulation / meme engineering in this fashion is so easy, independent sources are an absolute necessity. To those in the West, that might sound outlandish: surely the collective voice of reason would drown out obvious forms of manipulation.

This argument sounds like the concerns that were circulating a decade ago about how online life would be overrun by spam mail. Instead, the online experience in the West is much more pleasant and accessible now than ever before, thanks in large part to technical advances, many of which have been motivated by commerce. This may not be the case indefinitely, and those who hope to see democratic values spread by technology should focus on making adoption of these technologies inseparable with information freedom, while developing cheap ways to filter noise: keep the rewards for filtering greater than the possible gains from manipulation. On a positive note, that seems to be the trend (Twitter being a wonderful example so far).

Other possibilities: susceptibility to manipulation could stem from a closed meta-system, where cens0rs force users into larger, less robust portals with little commercial interest in filtering sophisticated noise (Sina, Tianya), thus centralizing the rewards that a malicious manipulator can exploit. This seems the most likely explanation.

The Chinese-speaking internet may also be more susceptible to these types of manipulation simply given user habits, which may stem from culture, or be a response to a closed meta-system (probably both). Chinese internet users are much more social than those in the West. Insofar as I understand it, most Western users deploy social media to examine their own profiles and post humorous / narcissistic status updates for others to comment on; and generally don’t venture much beyond their immediate circle of real-life friends. Chinese users, on the other hand, are much more social within their networks – more willing to friend strangers and find similar interest groups that they actually participate with – than are Westerners. My own habits, and those of my close Western friends, seem much more quotidian and insular, and less likely to participate in large open groups, and so there are fewer forums for explicit manipulation.

At present, China provides a very interesting case study, and the influence of each of these factors deserves much more attention than it’s been receiving, rather than simply writing off the Great-Firewalled Mainland intranet as a lost cause while trumpeting the total and inevitable success of information freedom. Understanding the sources of this resilience should be a focal point of the information freedom debate, rather than just assuming that such resilience is inherent to unmitigated information flow. Resilience probably is inherent; though better safe than sorry.

With regards to the bigger picture, it is deeply concerning how a lack of competition (without the likes of Twitter or open search engines) will manifest and deprive millions of people the capacity to choose between alternative information regimes. Fallows notes an argument that China’s segmentation of its intranet is similar to the Protestant/Catholic printing-press-schism that occurred hundreds of years ago. Protestant nations developed much more quickly since laboring classes became literate; their Catholic counterparts fell behind:

“Innovation by the “out group” based on access to the benefits of the new information technology that creates new sources of wealth and power. I would conclude, therefore, that China, having made Spain’s decision to control information, is now out of the running for world leadership.”

* The incredible image at the top of the post comes from Chris Harrison (with a very nice series of other visualizations) about the interconnectedness of the world’s information networks.

Consider also: Google is certainly not failing in China, and the notion is an exceptionally stupid explanation that plays directly into the simpering / entirely ignorant posture that multinationals seem to adopt when they consider the China market. The move may not be as costly as a lot of people seem to be suggesting. For the foreseeable future, China isn’t going to account for a large segment of the online ad market. In a decade that will change, though in ten years Google might develop a pseudo-intelligent-do-everything algorithm. The tables won’t turn but neither China nor IT broadly will develop in a vacuum. Significant changes could still occur.

This is a paradigm shift, regardless of what information we haven’t heard yet. A decade ago, the inevitable future plutocracy was supposed to oppress my rights and take advantage of people; yet here is a multinational doing what no nation state has been willing to do: take a decidedly scorched earth stance against the CCP. From Ultimi Barbarorum:

I was surprised that several Shanghai-based European VCs and businessmen I follow on Twitter were among the cynics, berating Google for not conforming to Chinese/Asian business practices based on saving face, consensus and relationship-building, instead reverting to an “American” ultimatum. But these views come from individuals who have already made their peace with China’s political system, and whose business models and reputation do not depend on the unfettered flow of information. Perhaps some of them are unwittingly using the occasion to signal their own reliability as partners in China: “Look at us — we’d never consider doing what Google just did.” Google may have burned its financial bridges, but they are burning their moral bridges, making them the Stupid Cartesians of this sorry episode, Baruch.

Other good readings here (Fallows):

… What happens after Google is so roundly cheered for taking so clear a stand? China will still be there; many of its people will hunger for outside information and most will aspire to modernization… The next step is to find some way to reduce the number of losses — including, yes, for the Chinese government, since (believe me) absolutely no good will come to anyone anywhere from the government’s feeling shamed, humiliated, or newly insecure. It is emotionally satisfying to see the Chinese government thrown off balance after its recent repressive moves. That won’t make things better for most people in China.

and here (Jay Ogilvy, via China Digital Times).

There would, however, seem to be some possibility that if information becomes more difficult to access, then necessarily the willingness to expend effort and resources would increase, assuming no endogenous change in the information preferences of actors within the system. Within this context, a small increase in the amount of effort above the threshold to evade the GFW provides access to a huge amount of information. The net result in such a scenario is that if more effort is expended, much more information can be accessed. It’s a big assumption, though: as effort required to access information increases, however, so too might some individuals decrease their information preferences to hold effort constant.

That seems to be the most critical question (from a social standpoint) of the entire debacle. If more Chinese internet users realize they are being segmented and learn how to evade the GFW, they then have much more access to the global internet, which is a positive outcome. If, however, the segment of internet users that doesn’t evade the GFW remains constant, then (at least 33% of them) will have even even more limited access. Both trends will occur in tandem; a positive or negative result will depend on the relative strength of each and the individual information preferences of those within the affected group: those who are marginally interested in more information but haven’t yet developed a method to evade the firewall.

Caij|ng is known for pushing the boundaries of journalism in China. They broke a story in 2001 about extensive insider trading, and another in 2007 about backdoor privatization of a Shandong Energy Plant (“Whose Luneng?”), which forced the recall of all of the entire print run of that issue. You can still find the article online; not sure if it’s been harmonized. Regardless, stories like these apparently made some people rather angry; and it seems questionable whether the editorial board exodus was motivated purely by an interest in academia. Better hours I suppose.

Oh well. Search for new bi-weekly reading beginneth.

“这个国家（朝鲜）的变革需要强大的国内支撑才可能实现，而这个进程不可能由外国强加，尤其不可能由美国来进行。”柯蒂斯·梅尔文非常清醒。

“This country [North Korea's] transformation requires strong internal support, and only then will it be possible to bring about, and this process cannot be imposed by foreign countries, especially it cannot be imposed by the United States.” Curtis Melvin is extremely clearheaded.

That didn’t seem right. So I asked Curtis, “What did you say?” He replied: “Hmmm. I think my original words were: Western governments have applied external pressure in the form of both carrots and sticks to encourage the North Korean government to reform its economic policies to little avail.”

Chinese media consulting: pre-translate any of your talking points. Mandarin is a subtle language, and due to retroflexive verbs and complicated parts of speech it is often very difficult to find a direct analogue to many of the primitive ideas expressed imperfectly in the vulgar tongue of English. It is therefore to your benefit to be direct. For example, if you want to say:

“The worldwide response to H1N1 illustrates the complexities and tensions between public health and globalization. Though on one hand we must preserve freedoms and human rights, pandemics could also present serious existential threats. Therefore, concerned institutions should move to set up a redundant system of detection and quarantine that respects individual rights while simultaneously preserving the need for collective protection.”

Instead, cut to the chase with:

“Awful dirty barbarian American imperialists infect the world not only with capitalist pig disease but also real pig disease!”

邪恶的美帝国主义不但用资本主义猪感染了世界，也用了真的猪流感！

Or maybe you want to address the importance of global trade flows. You’d be wrong to suggest that:

“Global trade imbalances represent a significant challenge to would-be reformers of the modern world economic policy. Net exporter nations, particularly those in Asia, have built up considerable capital reserves while pegging their exchange to support the development of their domestic economies; simultaneously subsidizing imports to wealthier countries. This system has led to a reversal of the normal debtor-creditor relationship in terms of relative levels of development.”

Instead just get to the point:

“Stupid miserly Americans should use their credit cards more!”

苯的美国人要多用信用卡！

Doing so will avoid messy multi-lingual ambiguities.