Blogs and China: Microsoft feels the pain, again

I blogged about Microsoft and blogging back in June over on Computerworld. The issue then was Microsoft accepting Chinese government rules forbidding blog posts with phrases like "Democracy" (民主) and "Taiwan independence" (臺灣獨立) on Microsoft-operated services in China.

Now it turns out Microsoft is taking things a step further by actively canceling the blogs of at least one political blogger, Zhao Jing (aka Anti, 安替).

I am not surprised. As I said back in June, Microsoft has to play nice with Beijing, not only to access the Chinese market and develop new lines of business there, but also to get cooperation in fighting software piracy and dealing with Chinese bureaucracy.

However, I also made several other observations/predictions back in June, which will end up making the current debates over Microsoft and blogging pointless. Those points are:

- The current government in Beijing, which is officially based on a Marxist-Leninist system, will undergo political and bureaucratic change over the next ten years -- Marxist-Leninist thought is dead in China, and incompatible with the new capitalist system. How the government and the legal system will change remains to be seen.

- Once it takes off, the Chinese government will not be able to control blogging. The Beijing/Microsoft strategy of restricting blog posts based on keywords will fail, as Chinese bloggers adopt different terms for these ideas, or post via sites based in other countries.

- The unregulated exchange of ideas over the Internet is viewed as a significant threat to the current Chinese government. Beijing has tried to rein in the Internet, but they cannot control it, short of shutting it down.

Stay tuned ...