> This alternative would include technical standards requiring foreign companies to build versions of their products compliant with Chinese standards, and pres

> This alternative would include technical standards requiring foreign companies to build versions of their products compliant with Chinese standards, and pressure to comply with government surveillance policies. It would require data to be stored on servers in-country and restrict transfer of data outside China without government permission. It would also permit government agencies and critical infrastructure systems to source only from local suppliers. That is the trend in the EU and US as well. Cyber protectionism, more or less. To be crystal clear: a nation's critical infrastructure that is produced or designed in places which are neutral or quasi-hostile to that nation is suspect. It's perfectly reasonable for China to want its critical infrastructure supply chain local. It's also perfectly reasonable to mandate that products sold in China be compliant with Chinese standards. The open question is what constitutes "transfer of data". And, to again be crystal clear: China is notorious for abuse of human rights and for being at the forefront of applied digital surveillance of its citizens. Which is a shame. > we cannot take for granted that the internet will remain a place of free expression where open markets can flourish. The internet has not been a place of genuinely free expression for something like a decade now; platform operators set boundaries. Note that open markets are disjunct from free expression. > . At a roundtable in Dar es Salaam sponsored by Beijing, Edwin Ngonyani, Tanzania’s deputy minister for transport and communications, explained, “Our Chinese friends have managed to block such media in their country and replaced them with their homegrown sites that are safe, constructive, and popular.” Among other countries where China invests heavily, Nigeria has adopted measures requiring that consumer data be hosted in Nigeria, while Egypt has pending legislation that would mandate ride-sharing companies to store data in-country while also making it more accessible to authorities. Chinese partners like Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt engage in aggressive online content control. Notice that there are benefits here: citizens' data is being stored in a country where they have jurisdiction to sue over misuse. I consider that a Good Thing. But censorship, again, is problematic. The desire to be an individual entails being wanting to able to say and write what you desire, regardless of the government's censorship (and China does have people who want this- it is not special in this regard!) > foundational principles of the internet in market-based democracies: how disgusting a word choice! we're not liberal (free) democracies, we're market (to be bought and sold) democracies.