If it's true that now the 800 million peasants can talk to each other for the first time ever, then Communist China is finished.

The MSM has the same communication problem the PRC does. They sympathize.

Isn't this what's been predicted by the geeks for years? That totalitarian governments like the ChiComs are caught on the horns the communication revolution dilemma? I.e., either they stifle communications and thence economic growth, leading to the collapse of the government, or they allow communications which permits their subjects to penetrate state propaganda, leading to the collapse of the government.

It's the system itself that's collapsing--communications just spread the news faster and more thoroughly.

China is not Communist, and if they do go down, then they're bringing us with them.

Anonymous:

We'll not even notice.

The PRC govt told American companies like Microsoft and Cisco to insert automatic censorship filters at the border egress points into the country, to keep out unwanted foreign web sites.

It's relatively easy to block Google at the water's edge. But it is nigh impossible to monitor a hundred million point-to-point communications between internal Chinese users.

And when those 800 million aggrieved and angry people share the realization "We are many, they are few." it's show time.

It doesn't take 800 million - it only takes about 100,000 - 200,000 (in the right places).

Did anyone ever see if the report of a Muslim suicide bomber in Western China in mid-July was verified?

Anonymous:

Is your comment ("China is not communist...") a lament?

Gideon, a good point.

In the first 25 years of the PRC, the regime could count on enthusiastic support from millions upon millions of collaborators, informers, and true believers. Back then, most of the Chinese people really believed in the regime's promises. Even though the regime's leaders were so paranoid they found internal enemies where there were none, the far greater threats to the regime were external. There was no real internal threat because most Chinese had willingly, if foolishly, subjugated themselves to Communist rule.

Today, that trust is long gone, destroyed by decades of corruption, misrule, and bloodshed.

This was already apparent in the 1990s. Just after Tiananmen, for example, the Party ordered Beijing's work units to report which of their employees had participated in the demonstrations. In the past, the work units would have dutifully followed orders. Instead, now the work units doctored their records to protect their employees, so that the Party couldn't trace who had demonstrated. Under these conditions, the greater threat to the regime was no longer external, but internal. In a very real sense, the collaborators of the regime had become collaborators against the regime.

Over the past ten years, the internal threat has only increased. The regime's attempt to use Microsoft and Cisco as tools of repression is indeed only good against "pollution" from external threats. It's no good against the regime's internal enemy, who now happens to be the vast majority of the Chinese people.