I’m on the same page as the Editors and Kathryn on what’s going on in China with Google. But I must say I’ve been surprised at how little I’ve seen on the op-ed pages tying this controversy to the larger argument over globalization. (Of course, I may have missed a lot of stuff). But it seems to me that this friction between China and Google is precisely the sort of thing supporters of globalization should be touting. China wants foreign firms, commerce, and interconnectivity, but only on their terms. It seems that’s impossible, so the regime is forced to make concessions to reality. Obviously, those concessions aren’t nearly as good as many of us would like. But the need to belong to the increasingly interconnected world is forcing China to confront and adapt to pressures it would otherwise ignore. That’s why, in a perverse sense, North Korea’s regime has been “smart.” The only way to stay in power is remain a Hermit Kingdom.

I remember reading an item in The Week (the NR feature, not the magazine) over 20 years ago in which the editors noted that the Soviets required all photocopying machines to be chained up at night, lest dissidents use them as vehicles for samizdat. “How could a country hope to compete with the modern West when it couldn’t even entrust its Xerox machines to its own people?” the editors asked (quoting from memory). The same logic applies even more profoundly in the Internet age. China will continue to oppress its people and squash dissent for a long time yet (and the U.S. government should, if anything, be more forceful in opposing China’s tyranny). But the fundamental incompatibity between freedom and tyranny will only grow more pronounced as China tries to modernize.