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whether digital resistance poses a threat to authoritarian rule?

test whether the diffusion of information communication technology—measured by increasing numbers of Internet and mobile phone users—is a statistically significant predictor of anti-government protests after controlling for other causes of protests.

The cluster of countries with high levels of mobile phones produced a statistically significant and positive relationship between the number of mobile phone users and protest frequency. In other words, an increase in the number of mobile phones is associated with an increase in the number of protests.

Can you imagine what the press coverage in the US would be if, in the run up to and during the early parts of a US hosted Olympics there had been three separate , successful terrorist attacks in, say, Utah or California? Would we the press not be going pretty much nuts covering that?

In a statement to the (Party controlled) Xinjiang Daily , he said Chinese security forces must “stick to strategy of seizing the initiative to strike preemptively.” But his statement barely made a dent in China’s news coverage, which remains resolutely focused on China kicking the rest of the world’s butts in the almighty race for Gold.

They announced: "We have immediately asked relevant government departments to investigate those that started the rumour." Relevant government departments? But how enchanting to find Nike speaking like the foreign office of an independent republic, almost as if the sportswear firm has an extradition treaty with the Chinese government. It hasn't, of course, so the rather more salient question is whether Nike has any qualms about getting the famously gossamer-touched Chinese government to leave no stone unturned in the hunt for - and let's keep stressing it - an anonymous internet poster."We want to act to protect our brand reputation in the same way as any corporation would want to if people were posting or writing false accusations," the Nike spokesman Charlie Brooks told the Guardian yesterday. "This isn't about a debate on freedom of speech. It's simply helping us to identify the person who posted it."

A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.

The Chinese author of the document, Huirong Tian, did not respond to repeated interview requests. Neither did Jiayong Chen of China's state-owned ZTE Corporation, the vice chairman of the Q6/17's parent group who suggested in an April 2007 meeting that it address IP traceback.

Another technologist, Jacob Appelbaum, one of the developers of the Tor anonymity system, also was alarmed. "The technical nature of this 'feature' is such a beast that it cannot and will not see the light of day on the Internet," Appelbaum said. "If such a system was deployed, it would be heavily abused by precisely those people that it would supposedly trace. No blackhat would ever be caught by this."

Reed Hundt also recalled that the initial plan — one he now thinks may have been naive — was that the U.S. would have total control of the Internet for “the first ten years of its existence,” so that the United States could “establish a paradigm that would win the war of ideas.” Europe, he hoped, would then follow the U.S. lead in Internet-related regulation.

Mr. Hundt, who now works for consultancy McKinsey and frequently contributes to the popular blog Talking Points Memo, is an ardent supporter of Barack Obama and has been advising the Senator and newly- annointed Democratic nominee,  on technology and telecommunications policy. He will be debating Bush 43’s FCC chair, Michael Powell, on June 10 — one of the early proxy battles between Obama and McCain, where the technology policies advocated by the two candidates will be on display.

The government now faces a tricky predicament: Having loosened its restraints on information flow this time, a return to its old ways at the next sign of difficulty could backfire. “The government should learn a positive lesson: When it allows freer information flow it is better for its image and legitimacy,” Mr. Xiao said. “But this will not always be a case, especially if the next crisis is man-made

China’s online censors can be merciless in their deletion of blog postings or forum comments that are deemed “too sensitive,” particularly involving anything to do with the so-called “Three T’s”: Tiananmen, Tibet and Taiwan. Post-earthquake negativity, though, has been tolerated. “Nine billion yuan [$1.3 billion] has been raised but how much will actually get to the disaster zone?” one skeptical commenter asked on a forum on Baidu, China’s leading search engine. Discussions focusing on discrepancies between the amount of donations declared by the Chinese Red Cross and the corresponding numbers issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs also have met with minimal interference, Mr. Kennedy said. However, the government has not turned a blind eye. More than a dozen people have been arrested for “spreading rumors” online, and political blogger Guo Quan was detained for questioning the risks posed by cracked dams and damaged nuclear facilities.

An exception to this is Germany, which gave the most negative of all the European assessments. China, on the other hand, was quite positive towards Germany. It probably isn’t anymore.

Danwei posted on Who is winning the Olympic PR War? Jeremy’s conclusion: In the West, Free Tibet organizers. In China, the Chinese government.

Chinese people are not “brainwashed” by the government but carefully considering Western sources and see them as being just biased as their own sources.

"These people have been trained in an authoritarian system. They are at the same time victims of an authoritarian system, but they also behave in an authoritarian way towards others and are incredibly self-righteous," says a Chinese politics professor who asked not to be named.

"We should be more tolerant and respect the right of people to disagree with us but these people do not understand such values."The term fenqinghas been used in each of the past three generations to describe very different kinds of rebel.

There are no indications that the contemporary fenqing are members of the sort of organised nationalist movement seen in places such as Russia, where Nashi, a pro-Kremlin youth group, has had a growing profile.Rather, "since the mid-1990s urban educated youth in China have become much more nationalistic rather than angry at the government", says David Zweig, director of the centre on China's transnational relations at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "There is a strong sense that the west, led by the US, is trying to keep China down and stop it from taking its rightful place in the world."

China prepared for the Olympics. Is the world prepared for China? Over 5 nights leading up to the opening ceremony, we revealed the controversial politics, history and culture of the world’s newest superpower and host of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. WATCH THE EPISODES HERE! Naked China: Busting Out Naked China: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Naked China: Out of Control Naked China: Fighting for FreedomNaked China: Let the Party Begin

We have to be aware of the fact that the Internet has given the youth living in controlled societies infinite venues for digital entertainment - without any religious or social censorship - that may not necessarily be enhancing their digital sense of citizenship and civic engagement. Risking the comfort of their bedrooms - with their hard-drives full of digital goodies - for the gloom of a prison cell does not appeal to many of them. The governments are all too happy to promote this new cult of "cyber-hedonism." Whatever keeps these troubled youths from the streets is inherently a good thing.

The fact that existing political activists embraced the Internet as a tool of mobilization is fairly noncontroversial. What's less obvious is how many digital natives the Internet has turned into digital renegades - and how many into digital captives. It's precisely this balance that will determine what the political landscape of Russia, China or Iran will look like in 10 years.

Commerce has since 1997 repeatedly refused to incorporate freedom of expression as a principle guiding the ICANN regime, despite numerous calls for it to do so in public comment sessions. The earliest of these calls came in 1997, during the drafting of the Green Paper leading to ICANN's creation, when the principles guiding the regime were first being formulated. EFF, the Domain Name Rights Coalition and many individuals asked that free expression be written into ICANN's constitution. The most recent reiteration of this call came in 2006, from the Internet Governance Project during a review of ICANN’s status. In each case, Commerce has either ignored or in some cases explicitly rebuffed these calls for recognition of free speech as a part of ICANN’s mandate.

As we’ve written elsewhere, the CCP views media development as a critical factor in a global war for public opinion. Likewise, many CCP leaders have come to regard “Western” media as pawns working for the interests of Western governments in spreading their ideology and influence — hence the party’s obsession with “color revolutions” and the role of the press.

I would suggest that China's January reserves data provides an equally compelling case for a reconsideration of the world's global monetary architecture. An international monetary system that requires this kind of official intervention - and likely will lead to more inflation in the emerging world than the emerging world wants and more government ownership of financial assets in the US and Europe than the US and European public wants -- strikes me as hard to sustain for much longer.

China added $55b to its reserves. Saudi Arabia added $18b to its foreign assets in January. Those two countries combined to add around $73b to their central banks portfolios. That means that those two countries alone could have supplied the $62.5b a month the US needs to sustain a $750b current account deficit and still had a bit left over to buy euros. Or they could have provided enough money to finance capital outflows from the US along with a current account deficit.It kind of makes you wonder why the US goes through the motions of selling Treasury and Agency bonds on the open market rather than doing direct placements with a few big central banks.

What is occurring is the meltdown of the biggest pyramid game in human history.

The right course of action is for the US government to establish a Resolution Trust Corporation to take over failing financial institutions, including hedge funds and private equity firms, and leave the Fed to tackle inflation. But a Republican administration could not go to a Democratic Congress for money to capitalise such a corporation. It could not justify spending US$1 trillion to bail out those who deceived investors around the world and destroyed the finest financial institutions in America for their own gains. Instead, the Fed will be called on to save the financial system, boost the economy and suppress inflation at the same time.

This lack of freedom stunts any real debate on the future of China. Thinking is still circumscribed. There are areas that are still taboo or where intellectuals can only hint at what they mean. In three vital spheres, this is deeply damaging to China’s national interest. The first is foreign policy. China has evolved in less than a generation into a world power, one now placed alongside America in a newly minted category of G2. But the country is uncertain how to exercise this power. And as long as the party restricts the debate to a known ideological framework, it cannot mobilise China’s vast intellectual capabilities to address this. The second area, intellectual property, is equally damaged. As long as there is no real freedom to question the foundations of society, China will not produce innovators. It will be able to copy and develop, but not to outstrip competitors and set the framework for the world. And the third area is the legitimate assertion of religious and regional identities alongside Chinese citizenship.

Singapore's exports collapsed by a stunning 35 percent in January, mirroring much of the rest of Asia. The export boom here was tied to credit-fueled buying sprees in the United States that stopped abruptly and may take years to return, if ever. Manufacturers are grasping for a Plan B. But none of the options -- mining domestic markets, or trying to tap consumers in still-growing China and India -- offers a truly viable solution.

"The collapse of globalization . . . is absolutely possible," said Jeffrey Sachs, a noted American economist. "It happened in the 20th century in the wake of World War I and the Great Depression, and could happen again. Nationalism is rising and our political systems are inward looking, the more so in times of crisis."

Economists from Credit Suisse predict an exodus of 200,000 foreigners -- or one in every 15 workers here -- by the end of 2010.

Shenyang, literally meaning “the city to the north of Shen River” and capital of the Liaoning province, is touting itself as China’s “next tourist destination.” But whether you are visiting the ancient pagodas of Old City or the official “High-tech Industrial Development Zone” the tourist brochures won’t mention the city’s male and female sex workers who mostly come from poor rural communities in search of talked-up urban opportunities. In partnership with the Ai Zhi Yuan Zhu Center for Health and Education documentary filmmaker Wei Zhang will train male and female sex workers who use the AZYZ center how to maintain a blog and upload short video documentaries to share their experiences, opinions, and troubles in order to promote more understanding of the region’s sex worker population.

"The heavy presence of Chinese (People's) Liberation Army officers throughout the proceedings left many wondering exactly what image the hosts were intending to project to the international community...," the newspaper said. "At a time when Tibet, Darfur and China's broader human rights record are proving delicate issues for Beijing organizers, the move to present thousands of drilled, sobersided army officers ... was surprising for its brazenness; a none too subtle projection of strength," it said. Asked about the military theme, Zhang Jigang, chief of the People's Liberation Army dance troupe, told reporters there were "excellent performers and directors" in the military. "I think this is a Chinese characteristic," he said. "All of the military arms have ... have wonderful acrobats and opera troupes. We should make use of such resources."

Prof Spence does not ignore the risks, but sees more grounds for optimism. He points to the ballooning number of university graduates, the emergence of grassroots civil groups, and the vast improvement in the education levels of top leaders as evidence that change will have to come. "The whole idea of representation is being explored. Remember China had a hard time with representative government, which fell apart under the warlord era [in 1915]. "China is backtracking into the past, looking for ways of making changes. We could wish they changed much faster, but we should be glad they are changing at the speed they are," he says. Hear Professor Jonathan Spence deliver the 2008 Reith lectures: BBC Radio 4, Tuesdays from 3 June, 0900BST

As I said, I'm all for information transparency and uncensored internet access. However a lasting progress in political reform comes from inside of a country, not from external pressure. Many Americans seem to believe in the external pressure they place on other countries; this might be a main cause of the problems with the US foreign policy. Looking at history – Americans have been in numerous countries trying to impose an order through external influence, how successful has this been?

Peter Scheer's effort to have WTO sanctions imposed based on Beijing's internet censorship, and the hearings that will be held tomorrow in Washington DC.