GFW Blocks Baidu Japan = The Decline of Censorship in China?

Yee reports that the GFW has blocked Baidu Japan. I can confirm that it’s no longer available via direct connection from my ISP in Beijing.

This is very interesting.

With regards to internet censorship in China, western companies such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft, make statements like:

We made a decision to launch a new product for China – Google.cn – that respects the content restrictions imposed by Chinese laws and regulations. Understandably, many are puzzled or upset by our decision. But our decision was based on a judgment that Google.cn will make a meaningful – though imperfect – contribution to the overall expansion of access to information in China.

I agree with Google’s thinking in the above statement and actually thought they made a smart move at the time, though hindsight is 20/20 and at least at the time I’m writing this it no longer looks to me like it was necessarily a smart move to make.

In any case, I think the fact that Baidu has been blocked in Japan now is going to have a greater impact on the access to information in China over the long run than foreign internet companies will. As Baidu expands abroad their search is going to need to meet the standards of foreign countries in order to be successful in those markets. Undoubtedly they will have to allow searches for things that are currently off limits in China. As a result, Chinese may wonder why “International” Baidu has more freedom to operate abroad than it does in China, and over time this may put pressure on the Chinese leadership to allow “Chinese” Baidu more freedom in China, which will also help to reduce censorship on the internet in China in general.

To put this more broadly, I think Chinese experiences abroad will have a greater affect on China than foreigners’ experiences in China.

It is also interesting to note that currently all of Baidu Japan has been blocked. People in China can search for porn (mainland Chinese searching for porn on Baidu.jp is ostensibly the reason for the block) via Google’s international site easily enough, even with a Chinese interface, and while clicking on many of the results may result in page timeouts, the service itself is not blocked.

Also of note, this block came on a Friday. Is this just a coincidence or smart PR? I think the latter as this should lessen the extent of the immediate negative impact it will have as there are typically fewer people online over the weekend than there are during the week, which will help to spread the negative reactions of Chinese citizens out over time.

Update April 18: This statement by Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, is relevant to the argument presented in this post too:

The decision that we made, which is a difficult sort of moral/ ethical decision, was that it was more important to engage with China, under the laws that they have in place, with the hope that China will open up, (…) which we believe it will. The alternative was to essentially reject China, not engage. And you don’t [effect] change by rejection, you affect change by engagement… engaging, and hopefully changing, by virtue of your involvement, your persuasion, and access to your information

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Tags GFW, China, Censorship, Internet Censorship, Baidu, Baidu Japan

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