The GFW is mostly a protectionist racket. By degrading the services of Western companies, the GFW gave their Chinese counterparts an opportunity to catch up to

The GFW is mostly a protectionist racket. By degrading the services of Western companies, the GFW gave their Chinese counterparts an opportunity to catch up to them, despite starting later (e.g. Google leaves China, creates opportunity for Baidu, etc.). It's also an important censorship apparatus, but that just needs to be "good enough," and is more dependent on domestic companies (the same who benefited from the degradation of Western services) following regulations to remove content on their websites.