Steve Hayward offers this comment on the controversy between Google and the Communist authorities in China over on the Ashbrook Center blog “No Left Turns.”
We now may see a serious test of the theorem that it is possible
to have a mostly market economy without democracy, or whether China,
which may be an economic house of cards waiting a Japan-like collapse,
will have to relent in its authoritarianism if it wishes for its
prosperity to continue. It is hard to imagine that China’s growing
technical class will stand for a Google-less existence.
I
still remember an extremely bright Chinese exchange student I had in my
Georgetown class a few years ago. Her English was perfect, as was her
writing. But I was stunned when she said one day after class when we
all went to the local pub: “I’ve looked at your Internet. Everything
on it about Tiananmen Square is totally wrong. The students were
killing policemen and soldiers.” Amazing they can keep this up.