China Cracking Down on Blogs

Fellow Red Ensign Blogger myrick writes from Shanghai:



We talk about the "freedom" of the internet. Well here, it seems, that freedom isn't an absolute.

The collaborators that myrick names are Cisco Systems, Alcatel, and Juniper Networks - who are selling China the routers needed to secure their newly upgrade internet services.

From the second link above is an exerpt from a quoted article:



I've had arguments in the past about not doing business with totalitarian regimes. Often I've come down on the side of free trade. You know, the idea that wealthy nations trading with poorer nations allows us access to cheap goods and allows poorer nations access to high tech and higher wages (higher relative to those they could earn if the market was restricted to internal trade only) and that eventually the freedoms and prosperity enjoyed by the richer society will be demanded by the poorer society of its own government thereby enacting real and demonstrable democratic reforms yada yada yada. They have to know us in order to understand us and want what we have and take for granted every day.

In general, I still believe this. My only moral restriction in this regard used to be the armaments trade. But there are other products that can be used to enslave a population besides guns and ammo...

What if the high tech being sold to China is being used to enslave and indoctrinate, or at the very least silence dissent? And what if the companies involved KNOW that their "secure" equipment is being used to "secure" free speech from the Chinese people?

In the 21st century, mere bullets aren't the only things that can kill and enslave.

UPDATE: Kate at The Last Amazon takes a harder line.