Comments on: Response to Jeff Jarvis’ “The China Problem” http://www.derekscruggs.com/response-to-jeff-jarvis-the-china-problem.html Answering questions about entrepreneurship, internet marketing, PHP/MySQL and doing business with China. (How's that for diversity?) Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:38:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2 by: Derek Scruggs http://www.derekscruggs.com/response-to-jeff-jarvis-the-china-problem.html#comment-5730 Tue, 06 Jun 2006 12:43:09 +0000 http://www.derekscruggs.com/response-to-jeff-jarvis-the-china-problem.html#comment-5730 Good point about corruption, which IMO is really the heart of all this. China has plenty of regulations around the environment, property rights and workplace safety, but they are often circumvented via bribery to local officials. Good point about corruption, which IMO is really the heart of all this. China has plenty of regulations around the environment, property rights and workplace safety, but they are often circumvented via bribery to local officials.

]]> by: Gurgle http://www.derekscruggs.com/response-to-jeff-jarvis-the-china-problem.html#comment-5729 Tue, 06 Jun 2006 08:57:38 +0000 http://www.derekscruggs.com/response-to-jeff-jarvis-the-china-problem.html#comment-5729 I think possibly corruption is as big an issue as the environment and property rights. People are very aware of it because even the media have been allowed to report extensively on the issue (e.g., why coal mine operators are allowed to keep operating unsafe mines that periodically cause large loss of life -- because of the connivance of local governments, etc). Incidentally, as people debate this issue, google.com is now being fully blocked in China. The only Google site that is accessible is google.cn, the watered down version that Google specially set up for China (with a warning notice at the bottom of the page: 据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示。"A portion of search results is not shown based on local regulations and policies"). Oh, and Gmail is still available. Perhaps it was just too convenient to block! The whole process of blocking was rather transparent last Friday as the government attempted to fine-tune the process (Gmail was there one minute, gone the next, back again later). It is very frustrating living in a country where access to overseas Google servers is blocked. There are many ways of using Google and they don't just consist of looking up banned religious sects or "splittist" movements. I think possibly corruption is as big an issue as the environment and property rights. People are very aware of it because even the media have been allowed to report extensively on the issue (e.g., why coal mine operators are allowed to keep operating unsafe mines that periodically cause large loss of life — because of the connivance of local governments, etc).

Incidentally, as people debate this issue, google.com is now being fully blocked in China. The only Google site that is accessible is google.cn, the watered down version that Google specially set up for China (with a warning notice at the bottom of the page: 据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示。”A portion of search results is not shown based on local regulations and policies”).

Oh, and Gmail is still available. Perhaps it was just too convenient to block!

The whole process of blocking was rather transparent last Friday as the government attempted to fine-tune the process (Gmail was there one minute, gone the next, back again later).

It is very frustrating living in a country where access to overseas Google servers is blocked. There are many ways of using Google and they don’t just consist of looking up banned religious sects or “splittist” movements.

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