But despite the regulatory headaches, Internet firms continue to expand and multiply. The enthusiasm is infectious. Online job listings for Internet start-ups receive thousands of responses. Nearly every bus in Shanghai and Beijing has dotcom advertisements on its sides. The print media are full of Internet promotional material.
China is now in the midst of a titanic battle over the flow of information.
The freedom of the Internet will inevitably win out over totalitarian control in the long run, and China will be refashioned in some as yet unimaginable way. But it will be gradual, as people have more information at their fingertips. It is the beginning of the endgame for the Communist Party, and some of the younger bureaucrats already sense that, even as their conservative colleagues reach for the old levers of control. But the Internet has no printing presses to shut down, no party structure to infiltrate. It is vapor, everywhere and nowhere, indispensable and unstoppable.