An Obama democracy/trade endeavor that isn't getting enough play:
The Obama administration publicly admonished China Wednesday for its vast online censorship policies, for the first time officially complaining that blocking U.S.-based internet sites creates "barriers" to free trade. The administration, citing World Trade Organization rules, is demanding that China explain its censorship policies. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk’s office made the demands after a three-year lobbying campaign by the First Amendment Coalition. “This development is important because it signals the U.S. government’s implicit acceptance of FAC’s position that censorship of the internet can breach the international trade rules enforced by the WTO,” said Peter Scheer, the group’s executive director.
Raymond Pritchett is over the moon:
For Information Dissemination [his blog] alone, access to a public Chinese reader market is (potentially) worth, at minimum, $1200 a month – and potentially much more. That $1200 could potentially represent gross taxable income, and ID is but a rain drop in the cyber ocean in the context of the entire US internet – most of which makes far more money in far more productive ways than my horribly optimized use of Google AdWords.
So while this WTO move by the Obama administration may politically represent a nuclear attack against China's Great Firewall censorship of free speech, the economics of this move is not trivial at all in the internet driven economy of the US today. For years China has systematically attacked the United States with lawfare, including attacking the US Navy indirectly through maritime environment related lawsuits. It is really nice to see the US government turning the tables and now doing the same to China for a change.
The Dish 