Do the Xiamen internet regulations have a meaning?
I have been ignoring the effort by the Xiamen government to curtail access to the internet, after the PX-protests, because it just would not work according to my assessment. The internet is a global system, China is trying to pretend it can stop some of the international access, but the idea of Xiamen being able to execute successfully any censorship system seemed rather unrealistic. But the non-news keeps on hitting headlines, even here at the Financial Times, Xiamen wants to force internet users on Xiamen-based sites to register under their real name, a measure that has just been abandoned by the central government because it was not “mature”.
