China's Government Must Now Approve Every Mobile Game
kotaku.com
kotaku.com
I remember Apple censored all Bitcoin wallets for years while they brought Apple Pay to market.
For example, a Chinese manufacturer can just dump toxic waste in a pit. A manufacturer in the US has to dispose of waste responsibly. Naturally, this is much more expensive. Those costs are passed on through the supply chain. We want everything impossibly cheap, hence the movement of manufacturing to developing countries.
This, of course, brought tons of manufacturing to China. They have become a world power with a reasonably strong economy. Their leaders don't want to give that up, since if their people demand workers' rights, environmental protections, and so on, manufacturing will just move on to the next developing country in line.
Therefore, they decided to implement harsh censorship, in order to lower the possibility of a revolt.
Why do we build electronics in China? The labor isn't that much cheaper in 2016 and represents one of the smallest costs in an electronic device. An iPhone breakdown usually lists $200 in parts and labor, with $2 going to Chinese labor.
On the flip side, they have a generational moat for electronic manufacturing. You build electronics there because everyone builds electronics there. All the factories and subcontractors are all near by. The system is efficient and cost effective.
If you wanted to assemble in America you'd probably still be importing tons of Chinese parts.
I expect that as their monopoly on rare-earths slips, electronics manufacturing will move elsewhere, slowly but surely.
it's China. It didn't HAVE a consumer class. Whatever "consumer class" it has to speak of, was developed over the last 15 years or so. And it's not much of a "consumer class" as "consumer classes" go. For instance, it's still not large relative the total population, and the savings rate of members of the "consumer class" is still through the roof.
So I think your real question is...
"How can it DEVELOP its 'consumer class'?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_in_...
If it exhibits short term negative effects, it'd be obvious what to do.
In addition to video games we also censor television, books, porn, the internet and music. Slippery, slippery slope... it's now illegal for doctors to talk about the facilities and treatment they observe working with attempted-illegal immigrants detained indefinitely by the AU government.
How can it be good? There's a million ways it can be good, but you and I wouldn't know them for sure. Just like how arbitrary Western policies can swing either the positive or negative side of consequences. Just like how a large portion of Britain thinks Brexit is good, and a large portion thinks it's bad. You can't just assume your viewpoint is automatically assumed to correct. You have just as much responsibility to defend your position as the opposition does to have to defend it against your inquisitions.
Before you judge, you're viewing China from a lens of systematic Western propaganda. You automatically assume their crazy laws are crazier than those proposed in the US, like New York's anti-large-soda law, which is also an example of mass behavior control.
From China's perspective, they probably think America is barbaric in terms of gun control (guns are generally not allowed in China), just as we from our perspective think it's barbaric they censor their internet.
But the government couldn't censor their views, because it would be against our constitutional rights. For better or for worse, we think the freedom of expression outweigh the benefit of having a government ban expressions.
I am glad that doesn't happen here in the Western world, but it's a good idea to try to think from their point of views of how censorship might be good.