I find ChinaGeeks to be one of the best locations to receive a balanced and informed Western viewpoint on China, and I thought other HN users might find it worthwhile (considering the amount of comments that China-related articles get on here). If you're interested in China, browsing through their archive is worthwhile; they have some great articles on the Internet culture there.
This piece was heavy on opinion, but light on research. Contrary to the claims of the author, the business environment did change between 2006 and when Google decided to leave. Brin's recent interview covered that exact topic.
Furthermore, this piece missed the point that while Google did block banned content, it's approach to doing so was very different from that of Baidu. Google included notices that results were removed and links briefly explaining why.
>The rest of the article devolves into an even more ridiculous assertion: that Google is somehow innately better at innovating than domestic companies, and thus, the internet market will stagnate as domestic companies sit around copying each other’s old technologies rather than moving forward. Google does have a history of innovation, of course, but are Chinese companies really fundamentally incapable of this? I reject that notion as stupid — and probably also a bit racist — but I suppose we’ll see for sure in the long run.
That idea would be stupid, but it's a strawman. The NYT piece didn't make any claims or speculation whatsoever on "inherent" or "fundamental" abilities. What the author may have been getting at was how strongly economic growth is related to openness, particularly in regards to technology. At the end of the industrial revolution, China and India represented about 40% of the global economy, far more than today. Many non-racist people would argue that the reason Japan and the west did so well last century was the freedom and incentive to innovate. See this speech by former Mexico Coordinator General of Economic Policy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KdOPY1Iqiw#t=18m40s
Since I regularly read Chinese language media myself, I don't have a strong interest in sites by foreigners about Chinese current events. However, there is one site that has always impressed me-- Danwei.org.
