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That's fairly absurd, such an action would essentially be declaring war. I don't see it happening, Starlink simply won't sell the devices in China and that's it

That's fairly absurd, such an action would essentially be declaring war. I don't see it happening, Starlink simply won't sell the devices in China and that's it.

dmos62 6y ago
I thought that this alternative is too obvious to mention. My point was that providing internet access in China without letting them MITM it would effectively be a war declaration.
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  Satellite phones are illegal to own, yet work perfectly fine right now in China and have done so for decades, no one is shooting them down.
  - T-A 6y ago
    Satellite phones ($500 and up for the device, $40 and up per month for the subscription, $1 and up per minute of use [1]) are out of reach for ordinary Chinese (GDP per capita in 2020 is about $10k) [2]. A better comparison would be China's handling of VPNs. [1] https://www.bluecosmo.com/satellite-phones https://www.bluecosmo.com/satellite-phones [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...
    - DarthGhandi 6y ago
      Think you might have understood my point. Satellite phones are out of reach like meth and online political dissent is for the Chinese, yet still everywhere. Regardless of mispricing in your links for the average mainlander (they make most satphones/data receivers) hundreds of millions of people in China could still afford it at the prices quoted. This isn't some small Finnish town we're talking about, it's 1/5th of every person alive on Earth.
      - T-A 6y ago
        > hundreds of millions of people in China could still afford it at the prices quoted. Maybe (I would be more comfortable with a claim that tens of millions can afford them), but they don't have them. Why not? Because the affluent "elite" largely consists of the CCP's 91 million members. They are the winners in the current system, and therefore the least likely to oppose it. What China fears and cracks down on is free flow of information to and between the masses of ordinary Chinese. > This isn't some small Finnish town we're talking about, it's 1/5th of every person alive on Earth. Moving the goalpost there. 1/5 of Earth's 7.8 billion is 1.6 billion, not your "hundreds of millions".

That's fairly absurd, such an action would essentially be declaring war. I don't see it happening, Starlink simply won't sell the devices in China and that's it.

dmos62 6y ago

I thought that this alternative is too obvious to mention. My point was that providing internet access in China without letting them MITM it would effectively be a war declaration.

DarthGhandi 6y ago
Satellite phones are illegal to own, yet work perfectly fine right now in China and have done so for decades, no one is shooting them down.
- T-A 6y ago
  Satellite phones ($500 and up for the device, $40 and up per month for the subscription, $1 and up per minute of use [1]) are out of reach for ordinary Chinese (GDP per capita in 2020 is about $10k) [2]. A better comparison would be China's handling of VPNs. [1] https://www.bluecosmo.com/satellite-phones https://www.bluecosmo.com/satellite-phones [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location...
  - DarthGhandi 6y ago
    Think you might have understood my point. Satellite phones are out of reach like meth and online political dissent is for the Chinese, yet still everywhere. Regardless of mispricing in your links for the average mainlander (they make most satphones/data receivers) hundreds of millions of people in China could still afford it at the prices quoted. This isn't some small Finnish town we're talking about, it's 1/5th of every person alive on Earth.
    - T-A 6y ago
      > hundreds of millions of people in China could still afford it at the prices quoted. Maybe (I would be more comfortable with a claim that tens of millions can afford them), but they don't have them. Why not? Because the affluent "elite" largely consists of the CCP's 91 million members. They are the winners in the current system, and therefore the least likely to oppose it. What China fears and cracks down on is free flow of information to and between the masses of ordinary Chinese. > This isn't some small Finnish town we're talking about, it's 1/5th of every person alive on Earth. Moving the goalpost there. 1/5 of Earth's 7.8 billion is 1.6 billion, not your "hundreds of millions".