China bans Twitter
features.csmonitor.com
features.csmonitor.com
Anybody ever manage a popular Web site that goes black for days? People forget about the web site, the momentum is gone, and you lose a lot of business.
There is nothing fair about our trade policies. This is a big part of what America does - create information systems, and it's not fair that China can block it with no good reason.
Also, I suspect this is more due to the government's inability to control the content on these sites than to the desire to promote local firms over foreign ones (although that's probably a bonus, from their perspective).
But people voted for politicians who give them access to the goods they want to buy without worrying about nuänces on international trade disputes.
If we shut Wal-Mart down and blocked Honda from selling cars here, there would be an outcry.
Access to better cars is good. The small, small minority of people in an individual industry hurt by more competition should react like any of us would in the things we build: try to build something better.
Let's get around the argument about crappy vs. good products and talk about two fairly competent companies. If Canada refuses to allow Boeing to sell aircraft to Canadian airlines, is it still ok for Bombardier to sell aircraft to US airlines?
But, yes, we should permit companies owned by people outside the US to sell things to people in the US, regardless of any policies in other countries.
Would you rather have better planes for all Americans, or slightly higher profits for a single company? It turns out it is almost always huge numbers of domestic consumers vs. a very small number of domestic suppliers, and NOT natives vs. foreigners as the suppliers would like us to believe. Also, foreign companies often employ very many people in the US, which means the labor interest component of the issue is very often blurred.
But then again you use past tense, did you mean the US used to NOT have restrictions?
Just curiosity.
This is all about June 4th, the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. Twitter has proven to be an effective "back channel" of communication that's outside of government control, so the fine folks in Beijing don't want it being used on the 4th.
This is all about internal Chinese politics, which trump business concerns every time.
The logic is just awful; but nonetheless you're absolutely right about the reasons.
Edit: I don't think it's 100% one or the other as they also like having the extra control that a local company provides. However, there are always reasons why countries want to help local industries the point of free trade is the idea that doing so always reduces economic efficiency.