China Views Internet As "Controllable"

Radcliffe_V writes "According to a leaked cable via Wikileaks, the Chinese government views the internet as very controllable, despite western views otherwise. The New York Times article also sheds light on how involved the Chinese government is in cyber attacks against US assets and companies such as Google."

Re:URL to page one? Or printer friendly?

[X-Power]

Since nytimes requires a referer in order to show the printpage, it's not fixable by slashdot.

If you feel like fiddling around with your HTTP headers, here is the link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/world/asia/05wikileaks-china.html?_r=4&hp=&pagewanted=print [nytimes.com]

Re:Iraq and China

[Doc Ruby]

Until the invasion, the US didn't owe China nearly as much, nor need China to continue to buy US debt to support ongoing operations (including the ongoing Iraq War).

In February 2003, just before the US invaded Iraq, the Treasury owed China [econdataus.com] $121.8B, 9.9% of the $1236.4B US total. In November 2008, right before the banking collapse caused a competing top source of US debt, the Treasury owed China $713.2 of $2104.1B total, 33.9% of the total. During that time, China's share of the US debt increased by 3.44x, while the total debt increased only 1.7x.

The Iraq War cost more than the extra $867.7B in debt; indeed, at over a $TRILLION the Iraq War cost could have entirely eliminated the US debt to China.

Re:Iraq and China

[LynnwoodRooster]

You really need to educate yourself... China's total exports are about 20% of its GDP. China's exports to the US are 20% of its exports. Put those together: China's exports to the US are 4% of its GDP. If all exports to the US were stopped, it would be less of a GDP hit than the US had in 2009. At this point, we need them (and their manufacturing, production, and funding) more than they need us.

Re:Eheh, been following the news lately?

[Lakitu]

While I agree that the rampant calls for assassination are detestable, along with the I have to disagree with the main gist of your post.

Senator Lieberman's actions in particular are abhorrent. He has suggested that he has "spoken with" certain businesses, such as Amazon and that Tableau one which was featured on wikileaks, with an undertone that he would sic the legal dogs on them if they did not do as he wanted. Behavior such as this is disgusting and should be condemned, along with all the other similar behavior where people are ignoring the entire legal system as if it is ineffective and incorrect. People behaving like this undermine the rule of law which is the backbone of American freedom and prosperity.

China, however, behaves quite differently. While there have been plenty of knee-jerk reactions to make WikiLeaks unaccessable in the media, almost none of them have been followed through with, and those that have do not actually make it unreadable, they just make it inconvenient. WikiLeaks has periodically had DNS problems but it is still completely accessible at http://213.251.145.96/ [213.251.145.96] outside of what appears to be a vigilante DDoS. In China, internet traffic which has been deemed by the party as "unharmonious" is essentially completely blocked and even attempting to use those services can lead to jail time. It's also gone on in China since long before WikiLeaks was around, so the US is hardly showing them how to.

You should take note that the people actually in charge who can actually do anything have been relatively quiet about the whole affair, having only gone so far as to condemn the release as making it more difficult for nations to conduct diplomacy. A lot of the racket being made is being done just to make those in power look bad as a way of garnering attention for themselves.