>As a meta point, I figure this is only the beginning and we'll continue to see China flex it's financial and population muscle abroad in ways that may seem hard to predict in advance, but are pretty obvious once they happen.

People in the west who complained about the great fire wall is going to be in a rude awakening when they realize walls are designed to keep things out AND in. If China actually encouraged netizens to interact abroad then every social media platform will become unrecognizable. People will beg for Chinese users to be siloed like in multiplayer games.