This morning I decided to login in to my VPN to catch up on news that I usually would miss as I am living in Shanghai, China. I noticed on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com that Thomas Crampton, http://www.thomascrampton.com/ had a post about Tech Crunch (TC), http://techcrunch.com/ being blocked in Mainland China.
I wasn’t surprised as China is cracking down on everything that isn’t China in Mainland China. It comes done to economics 101, looking at what, why and how the largest economy in the world was built.
In the business world that I know, I know that Chinese prefer to do business with Chinese. The Chinese government is making it more difficult for everyone including Mainland Chinese to do business in China. But obviously if you are a Chinese national you will receive preferential treatment. But like all economies if you would like to do business in the country of your choice you will need to make an investment. For China this goes for all industries, including internet.
For China it has many emerging markets that the Chinese government would prefer China to have control of in Mainland China. The number one reason for this is Mainland Chinese understand they must obey all the Mainland Chinese rules, laws, policies and so much more if they want to prosper in Mainland China which is accepted around the world. As well a Mainland Chinese business will fuel the Mainland Chinese economy.
When E Bay wanted to come to China many years ago, Jack Ma (there Mainland Chinese partner) deliberately started http://www.taobao.com/, and https://www.alipay.com/ to compete against E Bay. It is the same for You Tube (and other Google Products), Facebook, Twitter and so many more. There are many businesses in Mainland China that have prospered due to foreign sites being blocked. This is how China will grow to be the number one economy in the world the same way the US became the number one economy in the world many years ago.
There is so much more I can share in this area and over time I am sure I will, you can keep in touch via this blog. As per the article about TC being blocked in Mainland China, I just checked and confirmed that the TC site is not blocked in Shanghai, China today. But I will state it is very slow to load. Be warned that if it was blocked yesterday in Mainland China it will be blocked again, so start preparing for an alternative strategy if you would like to have coverage and run as a business (especially Internet) in Mainland China.
