Censorship - alive and well !

The Chinese government is determined to control every aspect of the lives of it's citizens. It's biggest threat is the Internet - which allows the free passage of ideas, information, commerce - and specially dangerous to a Communist regime - complaints about government corruption and mishandling of human issues.

Freedom of speech - and freedom to express ideas - is seen as a threat to the state machine in China. The Communist government imposed restrictions on the Internet that required search engine Google to apply restrictions that do not apply in any other world country.

Now Google has announced that it will no longer apply these demands, even at the risk of closing off China as a source of contact with the rest of the world.

This is the result of a cyber attack that many think was instigated by the Chinese Communist government. It involved the theft of intellectual property and hacking into the email accounts of human rights activists.

This clash of ideology is reminiscent of events after the end of the second world war, when the Communist world in Europe tried to shut out any contact beyond it's borders. Books and newspapers from the west were banned, and jamming stations were set up to prevent the people listening to radio broadcasts from other countries.

There was an attempt to portray Communist life as " a worker's paradise " amid claims that people in capitalist countries were miserable - and starving ! The fact that they had to build walls to stop their citizens escaping illustrated the failure of this attempt at " mind bending ".

The Chinese people have accepted the transformation of Communist dogma from the sheer brutality of the old Warsaw pact days to a combination of " Communism with a capitalist face ". It is now glorious to get rich - provided you do not seek to rock the Communist stranglehold on power !

Unfortunately the Politburo seems to have missed the point that in today's world the Internet is vital to interconnect commerce. If Communist dogma results in Google leaving China and the Internet being replaced with some sort of " China only " communication system the world's present commercial powerhouse will become stunted.

Love it or hate it ! The Internet can not work without free use by those who sit at a computer keyboard !