Given what we know of the NSA's success at pwning much of the Internet, this is an incredibly ironic piece of propaganda.
Indeed, I can't help but agree somewhat with Xi Jinping:
> Finally, China has promoted “cyber-sovereignty” as an organizing principle of Internet governance, in direct opposition to U.S. support for a global, open Internet. In Xi’s words, cyber-sovereignty represents “the right of individual countries to independently choose their own path of cyber development, model of cyber regulation and Internet public policies, and participate in international cyberspace governance on an equal footing.” China envisions a world of national Internets, with government control justified by the sovereign rights of states. It also wants to weaken the bottom-up, private-sector-led model of Internet governance championed by the United States and its allies, a model Beijing sees as dominated by Western technology companies and civil society organizations. Chinese policymakers believe they would have a larger say in regulating information technology and defining the global rules for cyberspace if the UN played a larger role in Internet governance. All four of Beijing’s priorities require China to act aggressively to shape cyberspace at home and on the global stage.
I mean, Brazil and other countries are pursuing "cyber-sovereignty". The EU's GDPR is fundamentally that. As is Google's latest undersea cable.
I have always loved the cypherpunk vision of a sovereign Internet. But that's very different from a US-dominated Internet, which is what we've had since the start.
I lived in Shanghai for 6 months and the internet sucked more then the air and thats when its hurting to take in a deep breath in winter. After returning to Germany I was more happy about the free internet (and freedom of speech and so on..) then about the clean air.
I am not the biggest fan of the GDPR and its also tragic to me that Europe has no real innovative internet companies. And as far as I know Brazil has some big challenges with corruption so I wouldn't take its policies as a shining example (not implying that you did though).
I kind of see the internet as my home and culture in many ways. I have met Egyptians, Brazilians and Koreans that shared the same internet culture as me. In contrast I have made much fewer friends in mainland China due to them not using the same internet as me (and thus not having even remotely something in common). They instead consume their own entertainment such as Chinese soap operas which my mainland friends have told me are vastly inferior to their western counterparts (not soap operas but entertainment and culture in general). Finally the restricted access inhibits the development of better English skills which further divides
I dont care much for visas or nation-sovereignty. I hope that we one day have universal human right centered values based on an free internet and open borders so that I am not limited in my pursuit of happiness by some arbitrary political rule.
I was in China for a week at the Amazon office. It was very jarring not able to load google. Or YouTube. Or gmail. Or google maps. The list goes on and on. Facebook won’t load. Even many vpns are blocked.
There are apparently 100 million VPN users in China. So people do access outside offerings. Everyone I met in China had used Instagram or Facebook. These things can’t be stopped.
How does Amazon actually operate their China office? Don't they have a site-to-site VPN back to the main corporate network for secure internal communications?
This was about two years ago and I don’t want to talk about internals too much. But from the office I couldn’t load any google sites. I was able to manually connect to the amazon vpn and reach google.
There's an unrestricted internet link to Hong Kong that you can rent. My company's office was paying 35000 USD but it's a big office, around 300 people.
> I mean, Brazil and other countries are pursuing "cyber-sovereignty". The EU's GDPR is fundamentally that.
To a certain extent, but if the EU really wanted cyber-sovereignty it would:
1. make sure all chips used in electronics sold in the EU are designed and manufactured there, by European-owned companies. This prevents a backdoor being put in them.
2. make sure all operating systems used in the EU are written there, also to prevent backdoors. The obvious way to do this would be to make it open source and based on Linux.
3. make sure all social media popular in the EU is run on servers based in the EU, and run by companies owned and run in the EU. This is to prevent outside actors from manipulating public opinion or from building up kompromat on individuals.
4. make sure all internet-based data services (e.g. Google Maps API) are run on servers based in the EU by companies owned and run in the EU. This is to prevent outside actors from pulling the plug on them or jacking up prices.
Could you define the 'cypherpunk vision of a sovereign Internet'? I am genuinely curious. Is it just a decentralized internet? I grew up watching anime like Serial Experiments Lain and reading Neuromancer so I think I have some idea of what you're talking about.
It's more like an Internet that meatspace governments can't mess with. Like Tor .onion sites, I2P and other decentralized overlay networks. But ubiquitous.
The line that internet sovereignty protects against mainly American tech is false.
Japan. Indonesia. Germany. Australia. Malaysia. South Korea. Lots of countries have had competition and have been able to have localized offerings that won in a free market. But in China. There is no free market.
AWS might be the most prolific. Far better product but it’s useless in China because it can’t be controlled. So China ends up with Alicloud a far inferior product.
The US government is becoming increasingly more paranoid of itself too. The smarter way is things like the EU are doing. Champion greater privacy for local citizens with heavy laws and companies will fall in line. It’s soft governance. You win on both fronts. Controlling data and championing human rights. Closed fists win nothing. If China implemented local data laws with extreme privacy measures Facebook would be forced to localize its offering and keep all data in China whilst fixing a massive public image problem. But it has nothing to do with that. The party is paranoid and will kill competition to control data any day.
Again, this country-vs-country bullshit propaganda.
The web is already less open from the efforts of US companies developing massively centralised platforms like Google, Facebook, and so on, you're familiar with the story. And they look very eager to play into the Chinese government's rules for their own profit, whilst at the same time paying lip service to liberal principles and internet principles of openness.
At the same time there's plenty of Chinese investment into decentralised cryptocurrencies, probably more so than coming from US investment groups. Some large western companies are doing more blockchain research for sure, but the vast majority of them are only interested in those within the context of their own centralised, privatised, permissioned systems.
Enough of this China vs US crap, your narrative is simply wrong. If you give a shit about the open principles of the internet, talk about the actual projects in reality actually trying to preserve these principles, and stop narrating based on false political boundaries.
Many of the things Facebook is used for were originally disparate services-- think of the smaller social groups that would have been mailing lists, or at least message boards. Event management-- RSVPing and messaging participants-- used to be a fairly competitive space too.
If you need services in those spaces, and lack the technical skills to roll everything from scratch-- but it doesn't fit with the Facebook model or business tastes-- you've got far fewer options than you had 10 years ago.
I'm thinking, for example, a community I enjoyed many years ago. It was for collaborative writing so most everyone posted under pen names. In 1998 it was implemented by a mailing list which got cross-posted to a newsgroup. In 2005 it would have probably been thrown up on a cheap "hosted forum" service like ProBoards. In 2018 it would be a Facebook group, and almost certainly stuck with posting under real names. And that's the most benign "we lost something" outcome I can picture.
It's an odd situation, while anyone is certainly still able to do any of these things (openness), Facebook and their kind have largely made it a fool's errand to even try. And I agree, the world has probably suffered more than we can imagine (and you have to imagine, what could have been). Yet, I think even the most rabid anti-FB person would have a hard time making a case they've broken any laws, at all.
And this is all distinct from the very serious free speech (not first amendment) issues, which are another huge problem.
I wish instead of freaking out over the latest petty outrage du jour, our societies would spend more time considering whether whether we might be going down the wrong path in a variety of ways. All the same stuff we see on the news day after day after day almost feels like cover fire.
They have the power to censor posts on their platforms, and use it, just like the Chinese government has the power to censor the internet in China, and use it.
That doesn't decrease the openness of the internet, just the "openness" of Facebook, doesn't it?
I happen to think whether they should be allowed to do this considering their size is worthy of a public discussion, but it doesn't affect the overall internet, at least how I think of it.
That's like saying monopolies don't decrease the competitiveness of the market, just the "competitiveness" of their own products for their own consumers.
Facebook or Google doesn't have the ability to crush or buy any competition that arises, that provide a more open platform? Which world are you living in?
Not exactly the analysis of China's enormously diverse and energetic tech landscape we deserve. In fact, sites like Technode, and even recent podcasts from A16Z and HN have provided much more rigor. We simply need better reporting on this essential beat: what Emily Chang and Bloomberg Tech provide for Silicon Valley, but covering the Chinese mainland and HK.
Actual subtext of article at hand seems to be that the antagonistic strategy by current US administration will lead not only to inevitable dominance of AI technologies with a distinctly totalitarian flavor. But also perverse side effects.
They may be imagining something like an Alibaba Cloud data center running in Northern Virginia. It may include Party-inspired features such as "content moderation" or "user prediction". Features far stricter than anything AWS or GCloud would be willing or able to provide at similar price. US enterprises (and government entities) themselves will be so tempted to implement these strictures, the coming authoritarian dystopia is all but ensured.
The narrative clearly does not have to unfold this way. US and Chinese entrepreneurs can and will forge amazing partnerships. On a recent web app I noticed about 50% of posts in Chinese. And very much look forward to localizing for the entire region.
I am skeptical about Chinese tech scene in the sense that Chinese government views tech as a way to reinforce dictatorship, repression of minorities and expand totalitarianism overseas, rather than to achieve something good.
Think AI to detect undesirable people or self-driving cars that take you straight to the police station when requested, as well as pressure to restrict freedoms in the West in order to appease the Chinese government or investors.
And as for partnerships, you may want to look at previous experience of partnerships in the Hi-Tech manufacturing, like planes or military.
The partnerships only last for as long as needed to copy your technology and start competing with you in your own market.
You have a chance vs you have none. Gone through monopoly like power such as Microsoft, AOL, compu serve, Yahoo, the flower one (forget its name now), Google ... do they do Facebook ...
The key is you can choose. You can start or not using it like young one quit Facebook.
But can you not use wechat, ... etc in china. No.
You are really controlled by a country which close off its world.
Being in Hong Kong we face the pressure everyday. Strange you have comment here cf USA controlled vs china controlled.
Really?
1984 is a hard novel. Suggest to Read animal farm. You know those pigs. And not need to due with them face to face.
There's one rational counter to what China is pursuing.
Basically, the US/CA + EU + AU/NZ + JP/SK (among others).
There is no other way to restrain China's ambition to force its illiberal vision of the world on everyone else. They won't rule the Internet and tech world unless that world fully breaks down into very strict isolationism (everyone for their self). China has to depend on a divide and conquer approach, because they'll never be bigger than the world or the developed world. So long as a large enough bunch of nations stick together, even broadly, it'll be enough to impose that China follow a minimum set of guidelines.
This China is no more intimidating than the USSR was at the height of its power. The same alliances will work once again. Even the worse-than-bullheaded Trump Admin has seen the light (which is why they're rapidly attempting to settle trade disputes re NAFTA & EU).
The liberal world is not going to capitulate all of its values to appease China. That guarantees a perpetual conflict of values, which will inherently divide the world into these two large groups. China also can't out-compete and out-innovate the combined developed world, no matter what they do.
In short, China will never rule the Internet. They will only rule their Internet, as they have for a long time. They'll have to play by other terms to be part of the larger, more liberal global Internet; that more liberal Internet isn't going to change to suit China (and hasn't).
This is spot on. China can only win in its local market with SAAS and IAAS products. With terrible offerings for the most part with a handle of offerings that are really great. When it comes to matured products I feel China can win. DJI, Xiaomi, One Plus they’re good offerings of an already mature product.
But when it comes to bringing a totally new product to a global market. Is there anything that’s been “new” and not an iterative design on a already global product for a lesser price.
Maybe not impossible, but things have to go really downhill in the West for us to bend over this far. Look at with how much pride we show off our democratic and free society, mentioning it whenever possible to underline our superiority to China or other countries. You don't give that up over night just for some economical benefit. You have to be close to starving.
I'm more worried how we start to undermine these very values ourselves in the name of fighting terrorism etc. While everyone's busy looking at how China is supposedly threatening our freedom, our government is already busy taking it away slowly, not heating up the water too quickly so the frog won't notice.
I wouldn’t worry too much. Just take a look at Chinese tech companies trying to enter new markets and how they’re not doing too well. Alibaba has the right idea. They just invest.
"To many Chinese leaders, China’s current place in the global division of labor looks like a trap: foreign firms reap high profits from the intellectual property they own, and Chinese companies survive on the thin margins they make by manufacturing and assembling physical products."
Is this not contrary to the western perception of Chinese profiteering entirely? I don't read the chinese paper or anything but China seemed like the last people worried about IP protections.
> the United States should work with its allies and trading partners to pressure Beijing to open up the Chinese market to foreign companies, curb its preferential treatment of Chinese firms
Ironic given the US government blocking investment from China in US firms, blocking takeovers, blocking China Mobile etc.
I am reminded of this excerpt from Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier, discussing attitudes to colonialism in Britain:
(In other words, it is easy to sneer at US control of the internet, but do people who do so actually want the alternative on offer)
“The same streak of soggy half-baked insincerity runs through all 'advanced' opinion. Take the question of imperialism, for instance. Every left-wing 'intellectual' is, as a matter of course, an anti-imperialist. He claims to be outside the empire-racket as automatically and self-righteously as he claims to be outside theclass-racket. Even the right-wing 'intellectual', who is not definitely in revolt against British imperialism, pretends to regard it with a sort
of amused detachment. It is so easy to be witty about the British Empire. The White Man's Burden and 'Rule, Britannia' and Kipling's novels and Anglo-Indian bores--who could even mention such things without a snigger?
And is there any cultured person who has not at least
once in his life made a joke about that old Indian havildar who said that if the British left India there would not be a rupee or a virgin left between Peshawar and Delhi (or wherever it was)? That is the attitude of the typical left-winger towards imperialism, and athoroughly flabby, boneless attitude it is. For in the last resort, the only important question is. Do you want the British Empire to hold
together or do you want it to disintegrate? And at the bottom of his heart no Englishman, least of all the kind of person who is witty about Anglo-Indian colonels, does want it to disintegrate. For, apart from any other consideration, the high standard of life we enjoy in England depends upon our keeping a tight hold on the Empire, particularly the
tropical portions of it such as India and Africa. Under the capitalist system, in order that England may live in comparative comfort, a hundred million Indians must live on the verge of starvation--an evil state of affairs, but you acquiesce in it every time you step into a taxi or eat a plate of strawberries and cream. The alternative is to throw the Empire overboard and reduce England to a cold and unimportant little island where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes. That is the very last thing that any left-winger wants. Yet the left-winger continues to feel that he has no moral responsibility for imperialism. He is perfectly ready to accept the products of Empire and to save his soul by sneering at the people who
hold the Empire together.”
I read this passage as calling out the hypocrisy of the English intellectuals who benefit from colonialism in India while flippantly call out its moral faults. It is not making a statement that imperialism is better than its alternative.
Indeed Orwell himself calls out the overbearing attitude of the British "flabby" and "boneless"
What I meant to suggest is that many people in the US took for granted the benefits of their hegemony, much like the British intellectuals took for granted the benefits of their imperialism. Hence, it may be a surprise to some that loss of US hegemony may be replaced by a China-ization of the internet outside of China.
Orwell was an anti-imperialist. I didn’t mean to say that imperialism was a good thing - that wasn’t what he was saying. (US hegemony may or may not be a good thing compared to the alternative - that will only become clear with time. I think it’s less obvious than in the case of imperialism)
Indeed, I can't help but agree somewhat with Xi Jinping:
> Finally, China has promoted “cyber-sovereignty” as an organizing principle of Internet governance, in direct opposition to U.S. support for a global, open Internet. In Xi’s words, cyber-sovereignty represents “the right of individual countries to independently choose their own path of cyber development, model of cyber regulation and Internet public policies, and participate in international cyberspace governance on an equal footing.” China envisions a world of national Internets, with government control justified by the sovereign rights of states. It also wants to weaken the bottom-up, private-sector-led model of Internet governance championed by the United States and its allies, a model Beijing sees as dominated by Western technology companies and civil society organizations. Chinese policymakers believe they would have a larger say in regulating information technology and defining the global rules for cyberspace if the UN played a larger role in Internet governance. All four of Beijing’s priorities require China to act aggressively to shape cyberspace at home and on the global stage.
I mean, Brazil and other countries are pursuing "cyber-sovereignty". The EU's GDPR is fundamentally that. As is Google's latest undersea cable.
I have always loved the cypherpunk vision of a sovereign Internet. But that's very different from a US-dominated Internet, which is what we've had since the start.