Scott Jennings: Western MMOs and China
MMORPG.com columnist Scott Jennings responds to news this week that Google will be pulling out of China by taking a look at the western MMO industry's relationship with our friends in the East.
Column By Scott Jennings on January 13, 2010
As I write this, Google's announcement that they will exit the Chinese market, absent the Chinese government allowing them to operate an unfiltered search service (a concession no one expects to happen) is reverberating across the web of technology news sites. The reason, as reported, is almost too incredible to believe - an attack by hackers backed by the Chinese government on source code repositories owned by Google and other prominent high-tech firms.
Reading this story, while taking time away from my day job as part of NCsoft's security team, which of late consists to a great degree of dealing with attacks from Chinese IP addresses and proxy servers used by Chinese companies, it seemed worthwhile to devote a column to looking at how China affects the MMO market - globally and domestically. I've touched before on China's role in the real money trading (RMT ) industry, but China's influence on the MMO market outside of cybercrime and sweatshops, to date, hasn't really matched its size. Many Chinese MMOs, such as Perfect World, have been localized for the Western market, but they haven't done well, usually released in the West as free-to-play titles that don't get a lot of publicity out of banner ads featuring scantily-clad women. To date, the most popular free-to-play titles are British (Runescape), Korean (Maple Story, Atlantica) and Taiwanese (Runes of Magic). And the tale of Western MMOs trying to break into China is a soap opera in and of itself.
China's MMO market itself is huge. This is fairly obvious - China itself is huge, China's economy is huge, China's number of internet users is huge, everything China-based is huge. And in the past couple of decades, as China's economy went into hyperactive overdrive, it was almost a bad joke that every company wanted to get a foothold in China, because with so many Chinese, you didn't have to sell THAT many of anything to be successful! Right?
Well, to date, Western companies have been most effective in using China less as a market and more as a resource. One typical example is in working with Chinese art studios, or in the case of larger companies, opening their own remote art studios to create art assets for a fraction of what it would cost elsewhere - outsourcing a more expensive part of game development.
Otherwise, attempts to break into China's market haven't gone well. China's MMO market, as I said, is huge - $3 billion yearly, or a quarter of the global MMO market. This is even more impressive when you realize that most Chinese MMO players use Internet cafes and pay for their gaming by the minute, generally paying far lower fees than users in other MMO markets.
;)
Perfect World, China's most polished MMO yet?
The Chinese market may be huge, but it's effectively blocked to foreign companies for the most part. Ironically for an economy that thrives on cheap exports, China's policies toward foreign-owned companies can be very protectionist indeed. This can be seen with the attempts by MMO companies to enter the massive Chinese market as well.
Part of the problem is a very Chinese concept - that of guanxi, which literally means "relationships" but more accurately is translated as "connections". Personal connections are of course a key part of doing business everywhere, but in China it is an art form that foreigners aren't expected to understand - and even resented if they do -- an interlocking set of social networks and owed favors that drive how businesses interact with one another. In such an environment, it's literally inconceivable for a foreign-owned company to gain a foothold. They simply don't have the connections - the guanxi - to function at all. Thus this is why virtually every investment in China is operated as a joint venture - because someone locally has to open the doors.
But not all of the troubles with entering the Chinese MMO market are due to a lack of guanxi. China's government, through the years has cast a dim eye on foreign-run MMOs. Part of this is obvious - there's a lot of money in China being spent on MMOs, and local operators spend guanxi with friends in regulatory agencies to make sure it goes their way. And part of it is due to a general resentment of foreign influence on "culture" in China in general. Online games especially are seen, in China generally, as somewhat unsavory, with tales of addicted users wasting away in Internet cafes after forgetting to eat. (Which, to be fair, isn't really very different from mass media coverage of gaming in the West.) Thus, foreign contributions to this are examined very closely indeed.
The most public example of this has been the troubles Blizzard has had with World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is phenomenally popular in China - even more so than here in the West. It's also one of the few foreign-designed MMOs that has a significant share of the Chinese market. And in the past year, Chinese officials have pushed back against that - hard.
;)
World of Warcraft in China,
where the Undead are a little less undeady.
Blizzard initially made many of the right moves with World of Warcraft. It launched with a strong local distributor, The9 (local distributors, remember, being essential for the guanxi they can bring to the table when dealing with the Byzantine Chinese bureaucracy) and retooled much of the game to be attractive to Chinese gamers, such as a business model friendly to Internet cafes. World of Warcraft was the one true success story for breaking into the Chinese MMO market. Then the Lich King came.
The "Wrath of the Lich King" expansion was no less anticipated in China then it was in the West. The9 had traditionally lagged a few months in releasing expansions (after all, translating all the text accurately and well in an MMO is no small feat), so when "Lich King" launched in the West in November of 2008, Chinese players expected to be playing a bit later. But not too much later. After all, the Taiwanese version was launching only a week later than the Western version - a fully translated Chinese version of the game.
Yet, the Chinese players had a longer wait. It seemed that the Chinese regulators had some problems with the expansion. Such as, well, everything in it.
The Death Knight class, for example. It was ruled as morally unsuitable, being dependent on death and the undead, which in China is taboo - at least if you don't have the guanxi to flout that regulation like every domestically produced fantasy MMO. Oh, and the raid on the Undercity. And um, that Northrend area. Can't have that. It became obvious, very quickly, that China was simply not going to permit "Wrath of the Lich King" to launch. Blizzard then in June switched distributors, from The9 to NetEase, in large part out of hopes that NetEase would have an easier time negotiating China's maze of regulatory guanxi.
;)
NetEase's chairman, William Ding,
in happier days.
The response from China's regulatory agency was swift - not only would Wrath of the Lich King not be released, due to "unhealthy content", but, hey, you know what, since you asked? Joint ventures between Western and Chinese MMO companies were now illegal. Well, that solved that. World of Warcraft went offline in China, and both The9 and NetEase's stock prices fell into the floor.
Except that another ministry in China said that the first ministry didn't know what they were talking about. At which point... no one knew what the heck was going on any more. As I write this, the latest word is that the two dueling government agencies agree that NetEase is allowed to pay a hefty fine and then maybe, perhaps, they can launch "Wrath of the Lich King". Well over a year, and hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue, after it launched in neighboring Taiwan. And perhaps, sometime before the next expansion launches everywhere else.
Meanwhile, there is no shortage of Chinese investment in Western online gaming companies, largely unhindered by any regulation. At least in the MMO space, free trade is still the province of fantasy.
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Aside from this column, Scott is also currently contracting with NCsoft.
Every Wednesday he provides us an insider's look at the MMO industry.
Linky no worky.
Edit: Ok, all is right in the world.
Sounds close to Isolationism to a degree and is certainly a "China first" economic mentality. I'm no economist but I can't say that I don't wish the US wouldn't adopt such a policy. I was reading an article on Yahoo about the Google pull out and it read that essentially because of such practices China has made such economic gains as to very soon overtake Japan as the second largest economy.
There's something to be said to a country putting value in its own business' and the government not predominantly signing economic/trade deals that are heavily favorable to the other country.
I agree.
I wrote this long post about Chinese culture and Government practices vs US, but decided against posting it.
Really seems like sometimes America bends over way to much in the world market. More so in recent decades then ever before.
The Chinese government goes back 1000s of year and the thought5 of doing anything in it makes the head spin.
A very interesting article but I sort of wish it could be expanded:we all know about the MMO markets in Japan and Korea and China; but I am curious about other 'oriental' places-Indonesia,India,Pakastan,Iran,etc.What are their MMO markets like?
i always said a country should not trade whit other country's if there is no "fair trade" and whit fair trade i mean have very very similar rules on both country's from official support (tax cuts etc etc) to ecological laws and labor regulation
This isn't new, China has always been this way.
When movie studios put up the fight to stop illegal boot legging of movies around the world, a lot of companies jumped on board. China where it is very common to boot leg american movies and music, didn't work with the rest of the world and the theft continues to this day.
China as a country is all about wanting other countries to support their exports and use them for cheap labor since it all brings money into their country. But they are heavily against anyone making money off of them.
Until the world puts embargos and taxes on stuff coming out of China as leverage to make China stop it's unfair practices nothing will change. But we couldn't do that because then we wouldn't have Walmart ruining the American economy.
WTF why Google pull?
Same Reason Blizzard pulled WoW?
Read the news links.
Whats the Freedom of Speech Internet Law in China?
It is wholely disappointing watching games falling victim to marketting practices. It leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth, and prevents enjoyment if and when things *do* transpire.
China guarantees no freedom of speech for its citizens; on the internet or otherwise.
Was that why they closed down WoW and such.
And what is Google over there?
From what I know over here, its just a Tight Search Engine and Email and stuff. Whats so big about that over there?
There are indeed pains in dealing with China, the attacks (supported by the government), having to know someone to get in, government controls, the copyright infringements by Chinese companies, scamming of email addresses and credit cards in games, etc.
Just best to not do business with China.
More trouble than the potential worth.
Block the IP's and pursue other markets.
China is the sleeping giant that every company wants to break into. Sad that China thought WoW would be a minor success with it's players but yet again show them how the Free Market System we use here in America will always dominate anything they can come up with there. I've always considered China as a parasite of a country, gorging itself on the success of others while showing no REAL beneficial relations in return.
Just look at gold farmer sweat shops, don't think for a minute that the Chinese government didn't have a hand in profiting from it. With the fiasco from Bootleg Disneyland, I know for a fact they wouldn't hesitate in under minding any foreign MMO that shows any REAL success in their country. I bet they were thinking two revenues for the price of one yang guizi MMO company when they saw the cash Blizzard was pulling in after every expansion. But Blizzard played it smart. They improved their security techniques and catered to the Chinese regulators. This in effect controlled the gold farmer business that their government was milking and sent a message to them that they either play the right way or not at all.
And you know that the Chinese government wouldn't take that lying down. So now we have them making up rules as to how business is conducted in China with a huge MMO that has a strangle hold on it's people, while the rest of the world sits and watches how it plays out between Blizzard and the Chinese government. To the rest of the world it's just a gaming company with a harmless MMO. That 's not as easy to dismiss as Google and it's potential to usurp the Chinese way of regulating how it's people receive unfiltered information over the internet. That is something people will shake their head at and say: "Oh well, that's China for you." But to flat out deny a gaming company from establishing a legit business opportunity to thrive in their country when they allowed 3 past versions of the game in would raise a LOT of red flags to other potential companies that would like to do business in China, whether they be gaming companies or not.
I for one cannot wait to see how this plays out in the long run. I think if China keeps denying their people the fruits of a free market system for much longer, ways will be made to move along without the blessings of their government. And many more will find ways to get what they want while beating the system.
Oh please... Not that "fair trade" myth... *People* not governments should be the only ones involved in trade in the first place. When governments get involved, you get thousands of pages of regulations, restrictions and exclusions to pander to the domestic lobbies who own the politicians. The real history of protectionalism has demonstrated time after time, that its the consumers that pay for this type of nonsense. With the various lobby groups and politicians laughing all the way to the bank.
Corruption and government power go hand in hand. The more power that a given government has, the more corrupt it becomes. This obvious fact is wasted on those who do not even understand basic real economics(Austrian school), not to mention human nature. The Chinese governments actions in regards to MMO's is just one of many, MANY such examples of out right corruption that is only to be expected from such power centers. What we need is real free trade, not "managed" trade thats conducted for the benefit of lobby groups, rather than consumers.
Look at what has happened to Blizzards Chinese players of World of Warcraft while the Chinese ministries are playing their internal power games with each other. Couple that with the in fighting between The9 and Netease and their connections, and its a glaring example of the troubles for consumers that such corruption brings.
They successfully hacked my account I was using for the CB/OB for AION, and NCSoft expects me to remember every little detail of where I was living at the time when I opened the account in 2005, what I opened it with -- they asked for a credit card that I opened the account with, I've never had a credit card -- and used a game card, etc.
This. In every consulting job I've taken since 2000 involving network security, blocking all known Chinese and North Korean networks is the very first thing I've done, regardless of the scope or purpose of the job. You can imagine how much shorter subsequent logs are.
Protectionism should breed isolationism; however, misguided Western companies see the golden goose across the Pacific and salivate. China is a hotbed of government-authorized piracy (of foreign installations only, of course, especially American). China should have exactly no effect on the worldwide MMO market, or any other. In a perfect world, America would pay back its financial debt to China and be done with them completely. Obviously that's out of the question, as the current U.S. government in power is mortgaging the future of the U.S. for the next several decades, if not permanently.
Great, informative article. Best I've read from the site yet.
The Chinese market will always have too much government intervention. They want majority of the pie and won't let free market rule.
It all depends if the gaming companies from here are willing to give in to their demands.
Google.cn is a filtered site. Certain topics and even entire sites are blocked there. Google has offices in China as well. If they drop the filter and talks don't go the way they want in China, then they will be closing down Google.cn and probably pulling out of the Chinese market.
Some analysts say that the financial hit to Google won't be much and others say China is a large chunk of their revenue.
I was in beijing a few weeks ago and the censorship is horrible.
You cannot get to youtube. A lot of google links are not working. There are forums .. CHINESE ones .. that are blocked.
Surprisingly, WOW works intermittantly (and i am using my US account, of course).
Thats been my experience as well. But the Chinese people accept/support that type of behavior, so its likely to continue into the long term future. Those who rule China(and make no mistake they DO rule), are attempting to balance expansion of the economy, with their traditional repression/oppression. Its a balancing act that is exacting a terrible cost on their people. But that is their current reality, and anyone who insists on dealing with them has to deal with that reality. Personally, I'd rather give that market a pass. Let others compromise what little principles they have, in the pursuit of profit in the Chinese market. But with governments globally becoming ever more authoritarian(the US certainly being no exception to that), its going to become ever more difficult to conduct business without using corrupt means.
The West had fundamentally the same issues with Japan for years. Now look at the poor buggers. Their economy is actually shrinking. The trick is when Eastern economies rub up agains ours they eventally get eaten because when we don't play by their rules we're more efficient thieves than they are. Hong Kong is already starting to show stress from being under Chinese rule but Western infuence. Remember when you owe the bank $50,000 the bank owns you. When you owe the bank $50,000,000,000,000 you own the bank.
This is one of the better articles I've read on this site. Good job.
This is of course a war.
It's an economic and information war at this point. "The West" may not see it but I am sure there are those in China that do.
The links at the bottom of the Google announcement show that others are beginning to see it.
The modern currency is information, IPs, Patents, design methodology etc. China needs these to expand her economy into a truly modern nation of the 21st century.
Unfortunately, China is a bit behind (not much). But, in some ways they have used that to their advantage. Why bother to do the 'inventing' yourself when someone else has already done the donkey work for you?
Why not just take their stuff and make it your own? You can do that in many ways... including driving them out of business and leaving a void you can fill with your own (identical) service (once the market is established for you).
Then there is the obvious intelligence value of being able to gather large amounts of information about your 'enemies' and (business) rivals from the comfort of your own 'home' - particularly when someone else does all the data collection for you.
'Free Trade' is a facet of this war - and the U.S. should be better prepared since they have been defeating their own 'allies' with 'Free Trade Agreements' for some years now.
I think the issue is that China plays by different rules and the west is 'not ready'. Well, we need to get ready. Cutting China off from access to information they seek (without paying for it) would help us win one battle. But this will be a long war.
Ok to hell with PC, but we have guanxi in the West too, just we call it corruption. Manus Manum Lavat. It's not something typcial Chinese, but 4000 years of practice have made it more sophisticated there. I mean, I seriously have the greatest respect towards many things China developed. I read many Chinese philosophers and novels which are entirely unknown here, and I do think the West can learn from some of their great thinkers. I also like their traditional fashion.
But in the essence, this "guanxi" is just a bad excuse for controlling people, and present day communist China is no better in this than the centuries of the Empire, just under another flag. Yes, the Chinese are used to it, and who can blame them. They had around 2000+ years tyrant emperors who used to behead people of a whim, just for saying their opinion. So the developed a system to make sure to have enough supporters to NOT be beheaded. And then Mao came and did it just again, only under another regime.
But corruption is corruption. It exists in the West too, tho less commonly accepted maybe and in a less sophisticated way. We really must stop looking at other cultures with that hilarious pretend of PC and so called tolerance. Yes you can say a 1000 times death penality by stoning is a cultural part in Arabia, but for me it is STILL barbary and brutality. Period. Some things have to called open. Human Rights may be an invention of Europe, but they are called HUMAN rights for a reason and not European Rights or what, and you either belief in those values and then they apply for everyone, or you don't at all. Guanxi... what a PC rubbish.
try running an empire of 1.3 billion people and tell us how you do!
1% criminality in china =to 13 million crimininal lol they probably have 10%
so they got 130 million criminal .usa is about what 350 million its like a third of usa population
add the corrution the lobbying etc etc etc
only india can know what china go trough!they dont have the choice to be severe!
dont count your laurel!in america too we re beinning to add more law like china give use 4000 more year and well probably be
10 time worst.
and in america we go one thing china never had till america showed up in japan!
its called!BIPOLAR DEMOCRACY!i live this and let me tell you its no better then any other regime before !it just look good!
chinese by themselves are probably more happy then the average american or canadian
since they respect each other way more then here in the whole america!
we got rid of the word respect in america when we got rid of the church and invented NEW ,IMPROVED BETTER RELIGION!
lol ya right.good old bipolar democracy!
try running an empire of 1.3 billion people and tell us how you do!
1% criminality in china =to 13 million crimininal lol they probably have 10%
so they got 130 million criminal .usa is about what 350 million its like a third of usa population
add the corrution the lobbying etc etc etc
only india can know what china go trough!they dont have the choice to be severe!
dont count your laurel!in america too we re beinning to add more law like china give use 4000 more year and well probably be
10 time worst.
and in america we go one thing china never had till america showed up in japan!
its called!BIPOLAR DEMOCRACY!i live this and let me tell you its no better then any other regime before !it just look good!
chinese by themselves are probably more happy then the average american or canadian
since they respect each other way more then here in the whole america!
we got rid of the word respect in america when we got rid of the church and invented NEW ,IMPROVED BETTER RELIGION!
lol ya right.good old bipolar democracy!
"Democracy" happens to be one of the WORST forms of government that we've managed to invent in the long and bloody history of the human race. It was rightly loathed and despised by the American Founders and the Framers of the US Constitution. At its base it is little more than mob rule.
The size of a countries population is no excuse for a brutal, oppressive/repressive government. That "argument" has been made by *tyrants* through out history. There are other options, but the Ruling class makes things easy for itself, and little cares about the suffering of their subject population, nor how many millions they kill to maintain their power. That IS what this all boils down to. Power.
That is what corrupts governments(and eventually) entire countries. That is why the various lobby groups give such generous "contributions" to the politicians. They want to insure that such power is used to aid them, and to harm their competitors. One can see this in all market sectors eventually. Blizzard has just had a harsh lesson in that reality, in regards to its problems with World of Warcraft in China. I'm betting that The9 didn't keep all of the right palms greased in the various Chinese ministries, which resulted in these problems. That lapse has cost Blizzard many millions of dollars.
Power Corrupts. The US government is just as guilty of that as any other government. But don't make the mistake of confusing the government with the country and its people. I know quite a few Chinese. They tend to be good people, with respect for knowledge and tradition. Quite unlike the thugs who rule their country. Much the same can be said about the people of just about any country, and also about the political thugs who rule them. But given how dependent many countries are on the US, i'd not be quite so smug about what happens if/when it falls...
I wasnt being smug. Its just an economic reality and not about egos. I already wrote that the US's bankrupcy isnt reality yet, because China's export is dependant on it. I also never implied that it was a good thing if US economy would crash seriously. It was only meant for the posters in this thread that act like US is uber anything. The Chinese already laugh at that :p
Bah, I can still watch porn on the internet for free from China, not using any proxy server or such.
Even as a simple tourist, I have experienced this odd behavior of guanxi, I just did not know it had a name.
I wasnt being smug. Its just an economic reality and not about egos. I already wrote that the US's bankrupcy isnt reality yet, because China's export is dependant on it. I also never implied that it was a good thing if US economy would crash seriously. It was only meant for the posters in this thread that act like US is uber anything. The Chinese already laugh at that :p
China can laugh all it wants. They're people rich but resource poor. That's a bad formula for raising your standard of living.
China can laugh all it wants. They're people rich but resource poor. That's a bad formula for raising your standard of living.
China was one of the few countries in the world that still had economy growth during the economic crisis. Besides, what use have natural resources if you need to import most of what you need anyway.
Im certainly not a fan of China's government, but underestimating their economic growth is just stupid.
I wasnt being smug. Its just an economic reality and not about egos. I already wrote that the US's bankrupcy isnt reality yet, because China's export is dependant on it. I also never implied that it was a good thing if US economy would crash seriously. It was only meant for the posters in this thread that act like US is uber anything. The Chinese already laugh at that :p
Judging by the fact "Tiananmen Square" is the number one search by Chinese users now that Google removed their filters, any laughter the Chinese government may be directing at us in the U.S. will be short lived. You know what happens when an oppressed people finally get a taste of what they've been denied, along with healthy doses of the truth of how oppressed they really are? They want more. And when their government starts to forcibly deny them what they want ( which the Commie Chinese government more than likely WILL do once they realize their information stranglehold is no longer effective ), you'll have more Tiananmen bullshit. Only difference now is the world community is alot different than we were in the '80's. China has enough heat from their current human rights violations. Another Tiananmen will get their asses put in a sling.
It's easy to have economic growth when your stealing others work and then running it yourself for profit.
China needs are consumerism to feed their labour. They need intense economic growth or they will be over taken by their 1.3 billion disenfranchised citizens who would be busy rebelling instead of working. Protectionist laws, would be a good way to get them in line. Just cause they have a debt over us does not mean they run the who show.
That's exactly what I see in China's future now. And once the people rebel, it's plenty easy for the rest of our nations to back them up.
That's exactly what I see in China's future now. And once the people rebel, it's plenty easy for the rest of our nations to back them up.
Revolution in a country with nuclear weapons is a bad thing. The world was lucky that the USSR went down fairly peaceably.
Judging by the fact "Tiananmen Square" is the number one search by Chinese users now that Google removed their filters, any laughter the Chinese government may be directing at us in the U.S. will be short lived. You know what happens when an oppressed people finally get a taste of what they've been denied, along with healthy doses of the truth? They want more. And when their government starts to forcibly deny them what they want ( which the Commie Chinese government more than likely WILL do once they realize their information stranglehold is no longer effective ), you'll have more Tiananmen bullshit. Only difference now is the world community is alot different than we were in the '80's. China has enough heat from their current human rights violations. Another Tiananmen will get their asses put in a sling.
I dont know why you got the impression that I was a fan of China's government or acted as if nothing is going on.
I dont expect any revolution from Han chinese though. Its already developing a middle class that will demand for changes in time using their economic power. So I expect a far more peacefully (through politics) change in that aspect.
The only serious problems in the form of instability could be expected from certain suppressed minorities. Like with the Uyghuren? (not certain about translation into english).
Anyway, dont expect any kind of early 20th century style revolution.
But whats so funny, is that most posters in this thread act as if the western countries are morally superior to the rest of the world. We start wars wherever we like, we create economic sanctions to whoever we like, we act as if we promote free trade while asking huge import fees for any potential competition, we point accusingly fingers at countries like China while at the same time still doing serious business with them. We have no right at all to take the moral high road.
If you look at history, the only time when we act to 'save' some countries inhabitants or punish its regime, is when we have nothing to lose or (more often) something to gain.
Just look at the decisions on where we intervene and where not. There are countries in Africa where human rights are violated in a more serious manner then even was the case with Irak, but nothing happens. Why? No economical interest. Its harsh, I know. But this is reality. There are no 'good' and 'evil' countries.
Revolution in a country with nuclear weapons is a bad thing. The world was lucky that the USSR went down fairly peaceably.
Actually no. The fact that it went down made it less safe. Radioactive materials are being sold and smuggled to other countries all the time now.
Oh come on. When was business ever fair? The US steals information/knowledge from the EU and the EU steals information/knowledge from the US. Dont be so naieve.
That's exactly what I see in China's future now. And once the people rebel, it's plenty easy for the rest of our nations to back them up.
They are economically prospering (Han Chinese anyway). That takes the main reason away most revolutions. Only potential danger comes from their minorities.
Lol, not much trading at all then. Even countries like US and Japan have weird tolls on certain stuff. I know US have a toll on imported steel for one thing, worked in the steel industry a few years ago.
We should really have an international trading agreement that all countries in the world should participate on but now there is only smaller ones like EU. It really should be time for a large international agreement now.
I remember when Japan put up a toll on French car. France got so upset that they decided that all Japanese electronic stuff must be controlled and rented in a single guy in Paris who was to check all stuff from Sony, Toshiba and the rest by himself before it was to be sold. It took a few days and then the tolls were removed.
Us can't treat China that way anymore, China owns too much stuff in Us.
Good job Google.
True. All dynasties that have fallen in China fell during hard times.
As long as the economy goes fine and people are getting it better and better will there be no revolution.
And it is always easy to look and point from the outside but it isn't as easy with the country you yourself live in. You don't get the same perspective.
You also need some good leaders. The American revolution had people like Addams and Washington, without people with both tactical skills and peoples trust you can have no revolution.
I don't see any Chinese democracy (except the GnR album, but that was also surprising) in the next 20 years unless the world economy totally tanks.
That's exactly what I see in China's future now. And once the people rebel, it's plenty easy for the rest of our nations to back them up.
Mao killed tens of millions of his own people. The current Chinese leadership would not even think twice about killing more, if they have to maintain their power. The Chinese people know that, so they are unlikely to rebel. Any small uprisings will be brutally and totally crushed. The West is very unlikely to do more than hand wave and make noises.
I wish companies like Blizzard would grow a back bone and tell the Chinese goverment to take a hike. They make a game that is accepted in every other country in the world, why re-build any part of it just so the Chinese goverment will let it be played there? Is it really worth corrupting your work of art for a few dollars that may or may not cover the cost of the re-build? Perhaps Blizzard would be better served focusing on more content and advertising in Taiwan and other neiboring countries.
As for Google pulling out, it's about time someone had the balls to tell the Chinese goverment to play fair or take a hike. Microsoft, Dell, Yahoo, HP and many many more should take notes.
Good points. But many such groups are at the mercies of their shareholders. The shareholders care about NOTHING but profit, and how best to achieve that. Thats why so many corporations have been bowing down before the Chinese government. But part of your above would send many Chinese into a hysterical frenzy. Taiwan is usually listed as a "region", rather than a country, so as not to get such people into foaming at the mouth hysterics.
Revolution in a country with nuclear weapons is a bad thing. The world was lucky that the USSR went down fairly peaceably.
This is insanely too. Desperate people do not always think with a sober mind. This could be something that could leads to a hyper nationalism or fascism with a country that easily has the resources to fight a long prolonged war. bad mix.
Mao killed tens of millions of his own people. The current Chinese leadership would not even think twice about killing more, if they have to maintain their power. The Chinese people know that, so they are unlikely to rebel. Any small uprisings will be brutally and totally crushed. The West is very unlikely to do more than hand wave and make noises.
It does not have to be farmers with pitchforks. It could come from within the communist party or military. Or as the Nazi's did a combination of the 2.
ack politics
I hate politics.
google as a search engine or most other are all filtered anyway lol.it doesnt mather if its china or baidu
the fact is all country in the world are control freaks when it come to information.so now people use other means now a days
google or baidu is useless in lot of case since spammer make sure only what they want seen make it to the first 100 page
if a new thing come over the internet it often takes a very long time to be discovered by the rewst of the internet comunity.
there are so many ways to make sure first page is flooded with useless junk a lot of info is just plain unavail for the average user unless you know the exact name of the domain.
china doing is just more seen since its a 385 million internet market.almost as much as the rest of the world combined
but forget china if your not from there you wont get in.it was ruled as an empire a long time are they more unhappy for it!
lol they might feel like it now but most chinese that lived in china long and came to america and have been here for a while would go back to china in a hearth beat if they had the money to go back
democracy sound find until you see the reality of it.anybody that saw citys like detroit and countless other part of america
in truth know that the exact name is BIPOLAR DEMOCRACY!
and that my friends is way worst then china regime.
look good on the outside but full of cancer on the inside(thats what bipolar democracy is)
bipolar democracy care only for one thing and its money.kill,steal,farm do whatever it take.but there are no ressource left we need to grow.screw growing .yep good old bipolar democracy but to the outside world it does look good
grin,we all know inside how it really is tho!
All goverments are asshats but there are degrees. Comparing china to the US goverment, or even more so to an EU or scandanavian goverment is not even in the same ball park. Plus you cannot put detroit and others cities in the US totally on democracy. Korea is probably just as safe as China, japan also. Both are democracies. Many EU cities and Canada even have problems with inner cities violance but it does not compare to the US. They are also democracies.
Plus i am not sure how dangerous certain parts of china are. They could easily have their versions of detroit. I am not even sure china would report that information. China has a huge problem with kidnapping children (especially boys) due to there one child policy but that barely goes noticed in the west. Maybe we should be happy every time an amber alert goes out.
did you cross border as of late go do so and check their office wall
its litered with looking for this kid and that kid.
democracy on paper is like all previous solution from comunism to whatever you can think about
the problem start when you add the human factor to the equation.everybody want a bigger piece of the pie then the other
even if they wont eat it they still want it just to brag they they have it
hitler was like that napoleon was like that the china emperor were like that ,the king of england were like that
every freaking regime were bipolar
now its just a new name its democracy but the porblem (bipolar)is still there so they just changed the word
big deal lol.didnt fix anything in the end
human right?lol go ask all the tortured people by america see if human right are very good .lol i doubt it.
check the war we do in irak,it was supposed to be to save kuwait from opression of irak.so we would go in there protect kuwait
border then the decide to go in irak because they believe there are dangerous weapon.wich they never found even one
just regular guns any american got on themselves everyday lol.
so did they go back to kuwait border nope they decide to expend to afganistan and now they are staring at iran
where will it stop?when they go all the way trough india and stop at the chinese border because they couldnt invade there too?
the fact is democracy is as bad as anything there ever was in the past ,not very hard to compare what democracy do
to what napoleon did back then .he probably had ton of reason to do it .did it made it ok !
of caurse not ,who cared since everybody was scared of him!i was born in canada my grandfathers father was born here too
and im a shamed a what america do to the rest of the world when they have 20 time more problem in their own yard
but they wont do one thing because there is no money to make in those venture.it cost less to go get ressource from poor country then it cost to open up a whole new industry to grow threes ,raise fish,add farm of different style
china will have done what nobody thot could be done for africa!save that country!and we jusge china lol!
i bet keeping 1.300 million potential criminal is a lot harder then just 350 million like america!
i dont say everything they do is good,but hell last i checked we do some very bad thing also here in america
where i live the retiree fund lost 4000 million $
sorry for my rambling !
Revolution in a country with nuclear weapons is a bad thing. The world was lucky that the USSR went down fairly peaceably.
This is insanely too. Desperate people do not always think with a sober mind. This could be something that could leads to a hyper nationalism or fascism with a country that easily has the resources to fight a long prolonged war. bad mix.
We've seen the path that leads to nationalism and fascism/socialism... Look at the 20th century as an example. Also look at the rise of the Neo Cons and Neo Libs in the US. Governments in general are becoming ever more authoritarian and repressive.
Look at the rapid rise of the police state in the US and UK as just one example of many. Corruption eventually leads to Oligarchy of various types(modern examples are post Soviet Russia, and modern America and the UK). Its this same type of corruption that Blizzard ran afoul of in China, with its World of Warcraft operation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy
This is insanely too. Desperate people do not always think with a sober mind. This could be something that could leads to a hyper nationalism or fascism with a country that easily has the resources to fight a long prolonged war. bad mix.
We've seen the path that leads to nationalism and fascism/socialism... Look at the 20th century as an example. Also look at the rise of the Neo Cons and Neo Libs in the US. Governments in general are becoming ever more authoritarian and repressive.
Look at the rapid rise of the police state in the US and UK as just one example of many. Corruption eventually leads to Oligarchy of various types(modern examples are post Soviet Russia, and modern America and the UK). Its this same type of corruption that Blizzard ran afoul of in China, with its World of Warcraft operation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy
This is not comparitively the same. Neo cons could barely invade a tin pot country by exploiting the exmotional responce from 911 before things bit back. Somewhat more authoritarian yes. Approaching fascism no. US has an elite definitely an oligarchy no. You can play semantics but it is no where near an oligarchy in terms of sparta or the sparta imposed goverment of athens.
This is insanely too. Desperate people do not always think with a sober mind. This could be something that could leads to a hyper nationalism or fascism with a country that easily has the resources to fight a long prolonged war. bad mix.
We've seen the path that leads to nationalism and fascism/socialism... Look at the 20th century as an example. Also look at the rise of the Neo Cons and Neo Libs in the US. Governments in general are becoming ever more authoritarian and repressive.
Look at the rapid rise of the police state in the US and UK as just one example of many. Corruption eventually leads to Oligarchy of various types(modern examples are post Soviet Russia, and modern America and the UK). Its this same type of corruption that Blizzard ran afoul of in China, with its World of Warcraft operation.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy
This is not comparitively the same. Neo cons could barely invade a tin pot country by exploiting the exmotional responce from 911 before things bit back. Somewhat more authoritarian yes. Approaching fascism no. US has an elite definitely an oligarchy no. You can play semantics but it is no where near an oligarchy in terms of sparta or the sparta imposed goverment of athens.
Really? Have you forgotten our last Dear Leader(W) and his antics so soon? The "detention"(in military control no less) of American citizens without Due Process for years. Wide spread domestic warrant less surveillance of Americans emails, phone calls and data bases. Imposition of "free speech zones" at the political conventions. Extraordinary rendition of *suspects* to foreign countries for torture. Use of torture by US personnel(includes "contractors"). The list goes on and on and on... The current regime under Dear Leader Obama is little if any better in many of those regards. The US has become not just much more authoritarian, but with the addition of the Department of Home Land Security(and its state "fusion centers") and the military Northern Command, effectively a police state. Notice I said *effectively*. We still have a bit to go before we reach the Stasi, or Gestapo stage. Police states are more of a continuum of bad and worse behavior, than a binary on/off state.
As for the US not being an oligarchy, it is to laugh. The banks(remember the bail out for bankers bill?...The phone calls/emails from the various congressional districts were running 90% plus against and it still passed) and the mega corps own the politicians, and own/controll the mass media. Its all about power and the corruption that power creates. China's actions against Blizzards World of Warcraft were just the latest of such actions, and resulted in its loss of many millions of dollars.
Please try to stay on topic.
Sorry about that. I shall.