&#62; but governing China is difficult, and without the ability to censor the internet, they too might fail.<p>Chinese history is full of fail like this, either the state is over secure, it lost it ability to prosper and be creative, or it's partial secure and ultimately transforming the whole state to a slave factory beneficial for a minority power group, or it was so secure internally but after a hit by the external (nomads) the whole state fail. Or it's not secure at all, it was hit by nomads and fail.<p>The western world did wrong on many levels during this Google flamewar<p>1. Never accuse C.C.P. gov't directly &#38; plainly, they already have dozens of counter plans ready, and they are experienced dealing with it. You have to use tactics to play with CCP gov't<p>2. Democracy, freedom means nothing in Chinese culture, esp. in average people's subconscious mind. Sometimes it even means some fuckedup ideology sponsored by the US Imperialism.<p>3. Keep the flamewar off politics and there are more chances of winning. We (Chinese) knew Google and the others will lose the battle as soon as the state.gov announcements came out. The CCP gov't has an ultimate weapon, patriotism. Any dispute can magically transformed to national security and ethnic pride by the hands of the official propaganda dept. No matter how reasonable you are, you will be overtaken by the patriotic voices inside this country overnight.<p>4. Use C.C.P.'s own claim to slam itself. For example, the CCP proudly declares it as a 'public servant', then why should a servant censor the master's mind? During days of the initial introductions of the Internet, many early official textbook in China declares the Internet as something without borders, with no political regulations, everyone can join and speak, but now it says it must be ruled under the Party's law and to keep the state stable.<p>5. The word 'censorship' sounds trivial to Chinese people, you have to use more severe and native expressions to interpret the concept. For example 'Literary Inquisition' <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_Inquisition" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_Inquisition</a>, or Naming Taboo. Because the CCP propaganda actively condemn these actions, it's irony and hilarious to see itself doing the exact shit right now. Another classy example is you can't copy paste China's Constitution Law on most of Chinese forums, weblogs or message boards because the system will prompt you there's 'illegal' keyword in the content.<p>6. The CCP gov't always accuse the US for it's cold war mentality, esp. in the pre-WTO days, but the Party now acts exactly like its role in a Cold War. There's even a growing anti-globalization hype inside China that the state should abolish foreign stuff and make Chinese alternative completely on <i>everything</i>