How Does Chinese Internet Censorship Affect Business?
China’s sophisticated Internet surveillance and censorship often make headlines in the West. Usually, those stories chronicle the latest crackdown on dissident netizens or highlight a Western journalist’s inability to reach the websites of human rights organizations. But recently, more of those articles are focusing on the business aspects of the censorship. For example, some people are pushing for the US government to make Internet censorship a trade issue. The argument, that Google has made in Congressional testimony, is that digital barriers to the free flow of information are equivalent to traditional trade barriers which are illegal under WTO rules; as such, the US Trade Representative should use its leverage to lower those costs to doing business in China and elsewhere. It is not clear if this will be effective, especially given numerous other bilateral trade issues between China and the United States, but recent news makes it clear that censorship does affect technology companie
