Beijing is nervous and insecure and Google has made it worse

Evan Osnos, writing in the New Yorker, laments the rise of a supposed new super-power:

As Americans living in China at this moment in its history, many of us have fashioned an image of a country that is moving—in its own shambling pattern of fits and starts—toward something better for itself and the world. Sure, it thrashes around a lot along the way, but on many days it seems to end up a fraction of an inch closer to a better, healthier, more humane way of life. But this is not one of those days. A superpower that is willing to jettison a tool so central to life as a global citizen begins to look less like a calculatingly pragmatic steward of its people’s interests and more like an addled Goliath.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

Site by Common