Matthias Runkel

The Great Firewall of China. Political and economical implications of the Great Shield Matthias Runkel

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: A-, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, course: Global Perspectives on Contemporary Issues, language: English, abstract: When thinking about China and the Internet, the first thing that probably comes to one's mind is censorship: The Great Firewall of China that insulates the Chinese population from western in-fluence via Google, Facebook or Wikipedia. But it is not only that. The restrictions do not only disconnect China from foreign webpages that may contain critical information. Censorship of the internet impacts the People's Republic of China on many different levels. First of all, it is a political topic, because of the internet's influence on public opinion. But this also affects China's international relations to other governments. Second, it is a business-related topic. So many industries count on the internet and censorship is a hurdle for their development. Instead of blocking this development, China will have to embrace the internet as a cornerstone for its future economy to be able to continue growing. To support this statement, this paper will discuss the implications of online censorship on domestic and foreign policy and the affects on international trade and China's future growth, respectively.