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.