How will the proliferation of credit cards in China affect the government’s ability to monitor Internet activity?
Online commerce in China is truly strange, by American standards. It’s both highly advanced and extremely rudimentary. Let me illustrate in two ways. 1) I very frequently use an online service called CTrip to book domestic airline tickets in China. I use its search systems to find the best schedules and the best fares. I place my order. And then, two hours later, a man from CTrip comes on a motorbike to my apartment to collect the payment in cash. Information is easily transmitted via the Internet in China. But the degree of suspicion about anything involving money is so vast that online payments are difficult and rare. 2) The Dell computer company is very successful in China, and I ordered a printer from its Web site. After choosing the one I wanted and clicking “Buy Now,” I had to go to a deposit office in the center of the city and hand over the cash. Again, e-commerce is sophisticated in China, except when money changes hands. Do you think that Western companies (e.g., Skype, Googl
