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A comment on China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet works. Parent comment

Re:China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet... by jondubois on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @02:40AM (#11759404)
Chinese people would be consuming western media through Facebook, Twitter etc... Through this media, they would be shown advertisements for US companies selling US products.

Soon enough, Chinese people would no longer be content with Chinese-made goods and services from small Chinese suppliers (e.g. through decentralized marketplaces like Alibaba) - Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketplaces like Amazon and Apple store - Basically the money would leave China and they would all be worse off on average.

By keeping western media out, they keep Chinese money in. Don't ignore the fact that media is paid for almost entirely by advertising and that advertising is paid for entirely by companies who need to sell products.

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Re:China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet... by seanmcdirmid on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @03:03AM (#11759488)
> Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketplaces like Amazon and Apple store

Both totally available in China already via their local forms (store.apple.cn and amazon.cn). My wife orders from Amazon a lot.

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Re:China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet... by ralusek on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @03:10AM (#11759538)
Letting the Chinese people choose what the Chinese people want is what's right for the Chinese people. If they are advertised US products and Chinese products, and they purchase US products, so be it. It happens in the other direction all the time, and it funds China from the west.

Economics aside though, there are enormously dangerous consequences to controlling the exchange of information.

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Re:China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet... by jonathankoren on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @04:08AM (#11759723)
>Soon enough, Chinese people would no longer be content with Chinese-made goods and services from small Chinese suppliers

Seeing China's nouveau riche and the general demand for western luxury goods, and hell even Buicks, you don't know what you're talking about.

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Re:China’s scary lesson to the world: Censoring the Internet... by mindcrime on Tuesday May 24, 2016 @03:47AM (#11759644)
Instead they would start buying US goods through centralized marketplaces like Amazon and Apple store

What "US good" - all that stuff is made in China to begin with! Well, OK, not literally everything, but as interconnected as the global economy is, what you are proposing strikes me as pretty much nonsensical. China won't benefit from "protecting" itself from trading with the West.

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