China’s Internet Controls Will Get Stricter, to Dismay of Foreign Business | Hacker News Reader

China’s Internet Controls Will Get Stricter, to Dismay of Foreign Business

nytimes.com

145 pointsdanielmorozoff68 comments

The Chinese government actually has very little incentive to allow foreign internet companies inside China. By restricting outside companies they do the following

1. Reduce the ability of outsiders to influence their people

2. Avoid Arab Spring like events where because the companies are foreign, the coordinating network is opaque to the government

3. Allow the domestic internet companies a chance to grow and develop without competition from established foreign companies

4. Retain and develop talent and technology (ie big data, machine learning) domestically

Because China has such a large population, they can easily develop and sustain their own internal internet industry without needing Western/American companies.

I think the Snowden leaks showed that the Internet has been weaponized by the United States and having American companies controlling large services like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter gives the US government a massive trove of intelligence. It also enables them to influence citizens of other countries. I think a lot of countries in the near future will see the Internet as essential to their national security and thus try to limit foreign influence as much as they can with varying degrees of success

Your comment has been downvoted, probably because of the hyperbolic "the Internet has been weaponized", but you bring up a good point. I've long thought it absolutely insane that governments all over the world blithely allow Facebook, and by extension the USG[1], to collect a comprehensive social graph of their entire citizenry. Who's friends with who, who talks to who, how often and about what, who works where, who goes where and when. This level of information about another country's citizens sounds like the wildest dream of an intelligence agency. It literally sounds like the onion: http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatic...

Why did these other governments let FB & friends in? I think they just didn't see it coming, and by the time they realised the cat was out of the bag. Well, China saw it coming, and closed the door before it was too late. I'm not surprised China is doing that - I'm surprised other countries don't do it.

[1] Does anyone seriously believe that at least parts of the USG do not have access to facebook's data?

> Why did these other governments let FB & friends in?

This is ridiculous. They simply wanted the benefits of having Facebook and the rest of the internet in their countries. In many SE Asian countries that surround China (like Myanmar, Cambodia, and even Vietnam), the internet is even synonymous Facebook and Google. Other countries lack enough scale to get that advantage, unless they decided to go with the Chinese social stack, which they would never do due to mistrust of the Chinese.

The only countries that block Facebook ATM are Iran, Bangladesh, North Korea, and China. A lot can be said about the common natures of these countries' governments, and why the blocking occurs (well, at least Iran and Bangladesh are kind of democracies). It is never about protecting their citizens' information! Instead it is about controlling communication among their citizens. They don't care about their citizen's privacy.

> It is never about protecting their citizens' information! Instead it is about controlling communication among their citizens. They don't care about their citizen's privacy.

I think you might be missing the point though: Every overbearing government wants that information for themselves. Giving FB access = giving USA access to that info. It gives the US a lot of political power. Locking out FB isn't about protecting their citizens, you are correct. It's about blocking out US intelligence gathering.

Who the heck posts secrets on Facebook? Well, in China, lots of things are state secrets, like pollution readings, basic street maps, consumer price information, or basically anything that would embarrass the party. In that case, I guess you are right, but it is basically vacuous.

But mainly, they want control over the communication channels, so they can shut them down when it suits their difference, as they have done time and time again. Seriously, how does banning this picture do any good?

http://globalriskinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/TIG...

The content of facebook messages isn't the only valuable thing. The social graph can be very powerful as well. If you know you need to influence person X, knowing who their closest friends are gives you a way in.

Ya, especially if you are an authoritarian despot who wants to track down the friends of suspected human rights activists.

>Your comment has been downvoted, probably because of the hyperbolic "the Internet has been weaponized", but you bring up a good point.

"the Internet has been weaponized" is nowhere near hyperbolic. His comment was downvoted because many Americans even highly educated and enlightened ones hate to consider the actions of their government and its implications.

I think the main counterpoint is that as soon as the USG starts to seriously abuse this power the rest of the West will coordinate around a different hegemony, probably the EU, but maybe the UK + Canada / AUS / NZ. The internet and western democracies generally are naturally open, and abusing this power will do more harm than good.

Aren't the major English-speaking countries already cooperating in this abuse of power?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes : Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

> Despite the impact of Snowden's disclosures, some experts in the intelligence community believe that no amount of global concern or outrage will affect the Five Eyes relationship, which to this day remains one of the most comprehensive known espionage alliances in history

It depends on your definition of "abuse", but what's going on in China and Russia with respect to the internet is far more abusive than an underused and ineffectual dragnet surveillance program.

Sure, but we shouldn't compromise our own standards just because we see others behaving badly.

I think the revelations from the Snowden leaks were that the NSA had a mechanism for getting information from Facebook and other U.S. internet companies, in a program now known as PRISM to the public (known as FAA 702 to the Intelligence Community and Congress). According to disclosures, NSA would submit requests via FBI National Security Letters for information about foreign persons of intelligence interest.

So it would appear that only the NSA had the capability to perform these requests; AUS/CAN/UK/NZ would not have access.

More information can be found on theintercept.com, theguardian.com, and other online newspapers.

> Why did these other governments let FB & friends in? I think they just didn't see it coming, and by the time they realised the cat was out of the bag. Well, China saw it coming, and closed the door before it was too late. I'm not surprised China is doing that - I'm surprised other countries don't do it.

Because other countries aren't oppressive regimes and actually place some value in basic human rights.

India may allow Facebook but it also dodged a major bullet with Facebook's "Free Basics". Facebook could've literally controlled 80% of "Internet" usage in India 10 years from now. So things could've been much worse for them. Here's hoping this still won't happen in some African countries as as well.

One of the first investors in facebook was In-Q-Tel.

I think most people who care about things like that already knew a long time ago.

I can't find any reference to In-Q-Tel ownership of Facebook: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/facebook#/entity

> I think most people who care about things like that already knew a long time ago.

What does this mean? If you have something to say, you should just say it overtly.

This is false. Please provide supporting information for your assertion that In-Q-Tel invested in The Facebook.

The OP may be confusing Facebook with Google. Apparently there's some evidence of Google's ties with the US intelligence community:

https://www.corbettreport.com/meet-in-q-tel-the-cias-venture...

    Two of the names that come up most often in 
    connection  with In-Q-Tel, however, need no 
    introduction: Google and Facebook.

    The publicly available record on the Facebook/In-Q-Tel 
    connection is tenuous. Facebook received $12.7 million 
    in venture capital from Accel, whose manager, James 
    Breyer, now sits on their board. He was formerly the 
    chairman of the National Venture Capital Association, 
    whose board included Gilman Louie, then the CEO of 
    In-Q-Tel. The connection is indirect, but the 
    suggestion of CIA involvement with Facebook, however 
    tangential, is disturbing in the light of Facebook’s 
    history of violating the privacy of its users.

    Google’s connection to In-Q-Tel is more 
    straightforward, if officially denied. In 2006, 
    ex-CIA officer Robert David Steele told Homeland 
    Security Today that Google “has been taking money 
    and direction for elements of the US Intelligence 
    Community, including the Office of Research and 
    Development at the Central Intelligence Agency, 
    In-Q-Tel, and in all probability, both the 
    National Security Agency (NSA) and the Army’s 
    Intelligence and Security Command.” Later that year, a 
    blogger claimed that an official Google spokesman had 
    denied the claims, but no official press statement was 
    released.

> Because China has such a large population, they can easily develop and sustain their own internal internet industry without needing Western/American companies.

Probably quite the opposite. Local internet business will rely on these restrictions to thrive rather than service, quality and features. They'll be shocked big when the market will open for foreign businesses.

Internal competition won't increase quality? Or is there a cultural aspect?

Internal competition means strictly less competition. Now you could question whether more competition necessarily means higher quality.

I think it generally does, but anything dominated by network effects is an exception to this rule, because quality and market share are mostly synomymous.

An exception to the exception are services that are based on network effects but subject to fast changing fashions.

Maybe, but Baidu is awful compared to Google as far as search is concerned.

Baidu is 50B+ Alibaba is 200B+ Tecent is 200B+

Baidu is continuously becoming irrelevant in the new wave of Internet economy. That, is the result of competition.

I am not surprised that Baidu becomes next Yahoo in 5-10 years.

Are you comparing English searches or Mandarin searches?

Both.

True, but WeChat is way better than any social feature/app Google has, and it has certain innovations beyond what Facebook, Snapchat or any other major social network have. There is definitely true innovation coming out of China, and it's easy to see how the GFW has enabled a lot of that innovation, even if it's a bit indirect or confused at times.

Please excuse me for being negative, but I hate WeChat. To a lesser extent I have to use LINE in parts of SE Asia, and it's crap too. I only use them because I have no choice. I don't want to be socially excluded. The positive thing I have to say about them is that the fact they use usernames instead of phone numbers make it feel like you're just making a casual connection, so everyone is more willing to connect with strangers.

Last time I checked, it was Google and Facebook that were shocked by the features and quality of Chinese services. In that shock, they proceeded to blindly copy them of course.

Citations please.

anecdotal, but visiting china and seeing the level of integration and support wechat (just one app) has in everyday life is way past the paltry "ooh look you can use apple pay in this store now" we have.

True, but the US has ubiquitous credit card usage while China never really had that (most corner shops/veggie stands lack unionpay POS terminals). Wechat pay feature has done great at solving China's problems, but it isn't likely to catch on in developed countries without those problems, while it is failing to move into markets in adjacent countries or Africa that do.

When I visited Australia (while still living in Beijing) last year, I was amazed that people could just tap their cards at convenience stores to pay for whatever. It was like I went to the future where you didn't have to hold your phone screen clumsily up to a scanner.

The US banks actually issued these for a few years (called dual-interface cards) though with the less-secure MSD technology instead of EMV. The the poor rate of adoption and high cost per-card, they eventually backed down and issued chip-only cards. These get replaced every few years and now that terminals exist in the US, I wouldn't be surprised to see dual-interface EMV cards issued by most major issuers within the next few years.

Let's hope so, I'd love to have what Australia has. And no, I don't miss payments via QR codes at all.

Is a phone that much more clumsy than a card? Personally, my phone comes out much faster than a card.

well as long as you don't have a bunch of them in your wallet you needent even pull out the individual card. i just tap my wallet.

I think infrastructure level has a lot more to do with timing than fundamental tech competitiveness or societal capabilities.

China's jumping on app integration because this is the starting point for them. Question is, does everything keep getting updated, or does this just become the new legacy system that they deal with for a few decades? Japan jumped hard on vending machines and such a few decades ago, but now a cash-only ticket-dispensing vending machine in a ramen place feels pretty outdated. Felt like places were leapfrogging standalone magnetic or chip-based credit card processing straight to contactless systems. Are these super important distinctions, though? Is some sort of cashless payment system "good enough" for most purposes regardless of implementation details around the specific tech - and similarly, does one app to rule them all enable a lot of useful stuff going forward vs a big pool of apps?

It's monolithic vs many apps.

Facebook tried to copy Snapchat and failed because people would just rather use Snapchat.

I'd bail on whatsapp if it got more integrated into Facebook.

It's a cultural issue, not some amazing chinese innovations that we out west are just blind to.

Reading about WeChat blew my mind a bit, I found the article: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21703428-chinas-wecha...

This is true, but it's also true that there aren't as many apps competing with Wechat in different niches in China. Wechat won, the way Facebook won in America, but moreso. Imagine if Snapchat, Facebook, and something like Apple Pay or PayPal were all a single company.

There were tons of competition for wechat, but wechat crushed them due to a combination of superior product and stronger platform (with QQ to start with). As a matter of fact, usually startups in China (or large companies pushing for a new product) execute very aggressively, due to the sheer number of competitions doing almost identical things. A few years ago there were 5000+ Groupon-like startups, and that was a strong filter for the companies with a strong execution force.

Yes. To clarify, I'm not saying there wasn't competition. Rather that the functionality covered by the winner is just much greater.

Changelog to Facebook Messenger would serve as a great one.

I thought they were copying features from Line (both of them)?

That's a great point, except for it being entirely false.

It's neat how the reaction to an authoritarian state further restricting its people's access to information from outside sources is "see, just another reason why the United States is evil, all hail Edward Snowden and the FSB."

The US government only cares about the US and its citizens. So by its stated definition, all non US companies would see it as evil/against their best interests to some degree.

>I think a lot of countries in the near future will see the Internet as essential to their national security and thus try to limit foreign influence as much as they can with varying degrees of success

an alternative: weaponize critical thinking and distribute it widely, especially to traditionally backwards groups. a skeptical citizenry is unlikely to fall prey to foreign propaganda.

hey, it's never been tried before. maybe it can win the information wars.

i'm just kidding, of course. governments and their corporate partners are terrified of general enlightenment because it means their death

One does not simply launch a website on a server inside of China. First, I had to wait about four months on a waitlist with AWS-China to get setup with an AWS-China account for our China business. Now, I've had the AWS-China account for about 3 months and still awaiting the ICP license to be issued, so I can actually open port 80 on a VM. No less, the time it took to get fully functioning companies in place to even be able to have a business account. It is a crazy struggle over here, but I guess if it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

Edit: forgot to mention that the solution also depends on my Chinese wife having her name on the ICP linense documents. It wouldn't even get done without that.

"still awaiting the ICP license to be issued, so I can actually open port 80 on a VM."

It is my understanding that things are much, much easier if you are not "publishing". That is, if you don't have a website or open port 80 (for instance) you can quickly and easily co-locate devices inside China - without any kind of license.

Although we have not yet deployed rsync.net in mainland china (we have a location in Hong Kong) all of our contacts and partners were happy to rent us rackspace for non-publishing infrastructure - no licenses needed.

This feels more like "AWS problems" than "China problems." I was up and running on Aliyun in ~10 minutes, with a personal ICP license issued to me (a US citizen) in about 10 working days.

Curious as to why you chose to go with AWS-China vs Ali's service?

I never understood why Western technology companies haven't taken China to a WTO tribunal for restricting their business practices. I mean, China exports trillions of dollars worth of goods to us yet when you try to export services to China, you're met with "The Golden Shield Project" aka "The Great Firewall of China". That doesn't seem like a fair deal at all.

Tim Wu wrote a law review article on this topic in 2006: http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...

I believe the U.S. government sent a preliminary investigative letter related to this sometime around 2009, but I don't remember whether there was any follow-up. (It was understood as laying the groundwork for a potential WTO complaint.)

Edit: here is a later article arguing the same theory: http://www.ecipe.org/app/uploads/2014/12/protectionism-onlin...

You mean American tech companies. Stop playing this West vs China, It is just US.

I think your tone is overly aggressive and accusatory.

European countries have a large trade deficit with China (€170B)[1]. The U.S. had about double the amount of trade deficit ($336B), mostly due to its greater value of imports [2].

This doesn't prove that China restricts access to its markets by European companies, but it provides evidence that the situation may not be as simple as you suggest.

1. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/7553974/6-120...

2. https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peo...

Trade deficit does not suggest anything. Whenever China tries to buy some technology, the US is so protective and at the same time buy all the clothes and low profit stuff. That is how you get the trade deficit. So it is pretty much that EU and US just keep Chinese work like slave forever. By the way, it is really just American tech companies. not a single european company's name pop up in my mind.

This is a bizarre and false statement. U.S. companies have been selling technology to Chinese companies and consumers for decades.

Routers (Cisco), farm equipment (Caterpillar), software (AutoCAD, Microsoft, Oracle, etc), medical devices (GE), factory equipment (GE), microchips (AMD, Intel, Qualcomm), high-precision measurement (Agilent/Keysight), etc.

The list is absurdly long. Your agenda is preventing you from seeing a more balanced view of things. Try to read a bit about cooperation between the two countries, such as huge foreign investment in Shenzhen, exchange programs between Chinese and American universities, success of Chinese technology firms in the U.S. (Huawei, Nexus 6P; Almost all solar panel companies; etc)

I can't bring a big European tech company to mind for any purpose not just this topic... there just hasn't been many influential consumer tech companies coming out of Europe recently that would have a big interest here. And as the article points out it's largely the consumer ones complaining here as the industry/government tech companies have already been under this level of regulatory scrutiny in the past, it's only new to consumer products.

So your argument seems to be built on a faulty premise that the two geographic industries are comparable yet one is silent... one is largely silent for another reason.

This reminds me of the Ming and Qing dynasty when the emperors decided to close the door and shut out foreigners. Gradually, China fell behind and the western powers bombed the door open during the opium war.

It is unlikely that other countries will bomb open the door this time, as China is a great military power. Instead, it will be disbenefit to Chinese people and consumers as they cannot access the services from outside.

Maybe. It's certainly true that protectionist policies tend to destroy tons of economic value, but remember that "economic value" itself is a notion whose definition has been carefully cultivated to steer thought away from the weak bits of western economic theory (here: tragedies of the commons / damage to third parties outside each transaction). The sum total of consumer inconvenience caused by the Great Firewall could well be worth the economic self-sufficiency and industrial prowess it bought. There is value in laying a foundation today for tomorrow's competitive industries, but you won't see it until too late if you limit your thinking to the margin.

Don't get me wrong, the GFW is also motivated by the corruption, censorship, and manipulation it enables, and I don't see a silver lining in any of those. I just wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the strategic value of protectionism.

The GFW is not so much motivated by protectionism but by CPC's tight grip on power and greed, to my understanding. If the CPC are adopting protectionism to cultivate their own tech industry, it is about time for them to loosen the Internet control because Chinese tech industry are very strong and established at this moment. It is unlikely for western counterparts to out-compete them in China market even on level playground. Among the top 10 most valuable Internet companies, China has four of them.

Everyone want to be like China and control their internet, their people and their industry and avoid external competition. Most countries can't quite do it or are unwilling to because it does have downsides.

Utter crap.

I have and continue to run companies inside of China, and have lived here on and off for 16 years. IMHO like most of the China-focused muck-slinging coming out of US media (increasingly frequently of late), this article lacks context and basically cries wolf over nothing concrete whatsoever.

First it claims "required security checks on companies in industries like finance and communications, and mandatory in-country data storage". That's really no different to EU and US regulations. Anyway, if the journalist (who according to the dateline allegedly published from Hong Kong) had basic knowledge about mainland China, they would know that foreigners are largely barred from finance and communications-related business anyway (despite China committing to open finance when it joined the WTO).

Finally, in China it's extremely common for new laws to be made (eg. "smoking inside is illegal") but absolutely zero enforcement to be done.

(Edit in response to stupendous quantity of downvotes: Oh sorry for having an informed opinion instead of upvoting faux-journalism that agrees with ignorant anti-foreign sensibilities. The evil freedom-destroying communists are coming! Run for the hills!)

Biased article. Apparently some people can't grasp the fact that being isolated from the world is the least of China's worries.

The problem is that American business is participating in unilateral trade and technology transfer to China. Further, many companies are, in the present, heavily invested. While it might be the least of China's worries, it certainly should not be the least of ours.

> The problem is that American business is participating in unilateral trade and technology transfer to China.

As a CxO, if you are going to meet the ever-rising quarterly growth target and all you've reached saturation in all your markets, you'll have to pander to China at some point soon. You aren't paid to worry about the long-term, the future CEO will deal with that. All you need to do is beat the street and keep the shareholders happy for the next quarter/FY.

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