Can you read this? I can't!

If you can read this blog, then you're obviously not in Mainland China. Even as I'm editing and updating this blog, I can't see it "live" online since I'm writing from Shenzhen, China. This is just one of many info-mediums that is edited or entirely blocked by the Chinese Govt. What are they scared of? I think it's the power of their own people. And if information really is power, then I think they have a lot to fear.

My experience is that the Chinese people are dying for information and opportunities. Just look at the explosive growth along the East Coast's Special Economic Zones, the number of Chinese graduate students studying in the West or the explosion of Chinese culture into mainstream Western culture (movies, food, tattoos, fengshui, etc.)

Unfortunately, many of the Chinese people are also jaded--from years of limited, edited, blocked, slanted and over-the-top politicized news. They see the $$ that exists in the "decadent" West (and now in the SEZ's of China) in comparison with their own relative poverty and find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the two. Some Chinese are angry but most are just apathetic. As long as they are free to make money, they'll let politics and information alone--exactly what the government wants.

And so the Chinese government turns a blind eye to IP rights. They claim that "China is too big" to control." But contrast this claim with the extensive efforts put into the blocking of news and information. The lack of IP protection in China is attitudinal more than it is logistical.