Since they're coming out and saying some fairly unusual things, I think it's an indication that they feel pressure. |
The individual cases of injustice put a human face on the systemic and structural lack of protection for people's rights. |
Their presence alone will not lead to improvements. |
This is a trend of foreign companies that are drawn to the very lucrative and very large China market to provide it the equipment and technology and the software and the services -- it's the whole range of IT [information technology] business -- in a way that reinforces an already state-of-the-art surveillance and information and social control system. These companies are all contributing to and built one of the most effective architectures of censorship and control in the world. |
This issue needs some really hard pushing. But it is in all our interests for China to develop a real society for trading information. |