I've worked inside various China government departments. In many respects, they have less data on China citizens than the U.S. government has access to on U.S. citizens.
If China is on a "1984 path", all I can tell you is the U.S. and UK are ahead of them at the moment in terms of data collection.
As to needing to be an insider to get your business going. This is only true for certain types of business. For those types, as a foreigner, you'd do well to stay out of it anyway, without regard to how connected you are.
Re:China is choking the Internet
by flsvilling on Sunday May 16, 2010 @10:39AM
(#1352069)
China still takes the lead in censorship.
I wouldn't bet on that. The US is full of 'self-censors', and that in a way is even more chilling.
Yes, they're a real pain. I don't think it is as much that they don't realize it, they just see it as a way to make money. Take Cisco for example: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/05/leaked-cisco-do/
All of the equipment is manufactured in China anyway... Why would they not sell to the Chinese government when the alternative is for the government to get the unbranded equipment that is manufactured when the factory is "offline". :P
Please name names.
Cisco, Nortel (now Avaya).
source: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=4854
There may be others though.
The real problem is the international companies providing all this nifty IT tech to actually realize this 1984 path what is going on in China.