Do you know why Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Wordpress and many more silicon valley sites are blocked in China? If you think it had nearly anything to do with censorship, you got it wrong. The journalists of the world make a big fuss over the great firewall of China, how all data on the web is censored by the country, but they don't understand it's the Chinese way of diverting attention to nurture their own industry. It's sneaky!
What China does not want are American silicon valley companies to own the IT industry on its own turf. By blocking websites from abroad, they've created opportunities for Chinese IT companies to grow and evolve (even at the small cost of lagging behind for a good few years). They want to build a similar competitive IT ecosystem in China (well underway!) and they don't want SV companies to own information passing thru the Chinese internet -we're talking high level jobs and services as the country becomes more developed.
The red Qzone area in the map below says it all. I find it hard pressed to acknowledge that the current scenario is by chance and not a well thought out scheme. These choices the country makes today will be significant in the future.
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