When will (GFW) GREAT FIRE WALL OF CHINA disappear?
14 Answers
I believe China will lift the Great Fire Wall in no more than 15 years.
Great Fire Wall partly serves as an ideological water gate. It’s rather similar to Comics Code Authority, which cracked down on American comics in the 1950s. After 50 years in service, CCA was finally lifted in 2001.
I didn't mean that Chinese have to wait 40 years to see the final days of Great Fire Wall, but the duration can be long enough.
Hopefully, GFW also serves as a protective shield for Chinese local Internet companies, including Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Sina, and Netease.
Here are their global rankings. A lot of Chinese companies haven't gone public yet, which means they will not appear on the list, but we will see them very soon.
In 2015, Chinese companies were taking up 4/22 (18%) of the list, while their American counterparts had a share of 13/22 (60%).
In the meantime, as for the data of 2014, China and USA were both taking roughly 16% of the global GDP (PPP).
Dividing the global “company share” with the “GDP share”, China’s multiplier turns out to be 112%, while it is 375% to the US. This means although China had caught up with the US in GDP, it still has to become three times more competent when it comes to the Internet. Long way ahead, isn't it?
Protectionism is only needed when there’s something worth protecting. As soon as these companies grow big enough to play in the wild, Chinese authority will let them do so. 10 years ago, China’s global “GDP share” was 9.68%, now it has nearly doubled. Considering this, I believe the duration for Chinese companies to catch up with their US rivals won't be very long, probably 10 - 15 years.
Contrary to common belief, ideology is not the major motivator behind Great Fire Wall. As long as China has stronger Internet companies, in no time it will have a bigger speaker to propagate it’s own narrative. The Great Fire Wall won't be needed then.
In a nut shell, I seriously predict that China will lift the Great Fire Wall at some point during the coming 15 years. Of course, if it doesn't collapse beforehand.
Updated: Gabe Cunningham
The Wall protected some of the giants — true.But it also spoiled them, severely.You know who I’m talking about.
I can't see they are spoiled much these days. Baidu has some well known innovation problems but still, it managed to copy Google’s products and make some potential improvements. Its problems are factually about management.
Tencent has been an alleged copy cat started from some 15 years ago, but now it's leading on some fronts. Alibaba is light years ahead of its global counterparts. Netease is in relatively low profile but I would say it's a very good stock heavily undervalued.
About 17 years ago, when China joined WTO, SOEs being spoiled became the mainstream narrative of Chinese public. For example, ISPs including China Netcom and China Telecom, were allegedly under “fake competition” （假竞争）. After all these years, my observation tells me the competition among ISPs is real. Public sentiment is becoming much milder these days. It was at peak around 2004, when China Unicom, China Telecom, China Netcom, China Mobile all became major players, public started to believe that dividing, acquiring, and restructuring them were economic gymnastics.
SOEs being spoiled is an old, old conception. You can even trace back to the 1980s, when “free market” was among students’ top demands in Tiananmen Square incident.
However, history has clearly told us, John Keynes is right. But this is something that neoliberal “free market” monopolies and their propaganda minions will never openly talk about. After all, even after 2008, they are still shoving “free market” down their citizens’ throats.
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