It was Andrew Hupert, adjunct professor at New York University’s Shanghai campus and author of the China Solved blog, who first brought up to me China’s trend toward what he called the Fractured Web, at a cafe in Shanghai during the summer of 2009. He saw the powers that be as having no interest in lifting the blocks on such Western internet institutions as Facebook, Youtube, Blogger and others. Indeed, bending the internet inward with the Great Firewall of China would relieve its fledgling internet companies a leg up on international competition, and reinforce the level of self-censorship the Party desires in the burgeoning information age.

Google’s revolt against cyber-intrusions and censorship has brought a spotlight on the degree to which apparatchiks have been able to bend internet space and fold China’s engagement with the world in on itself. The Financial Times, in particular, has an extended article on the evolution of China’s internet self-involvement, which, though certainly has government impetus, is also driven by cultural preferences and linguistic shortcomings.

As the FT rightly points out, though, “In spite of heightened censorship in the past year – leading to Google’s complaints – the internet is still the freest space in Chinese society.”

Past blog post: One Country, Two Webs