New wall of China.

I'd been thinking how a massive influx of Olympic games visitors and associated media would impact upon China. Whilst there has been almost unimaginable growth and modernisation there, I suppose that there must still be Chinese who have avoided all this. Not for much longer I think. Television reaches some very isolated areas in the rest of the world and this will be happening there.

China seems keen to limit the spread of Internet such as we have here. This seems to have started by controlling the porn and general spamming email traffic but is now much more comprehensive and targetted. China's Internet filtering regime is the most sophisticated effort of its kind in the world. Compared to similar efforts in other states, China's filtering regime is pervasive, sophisticated, and effective. It comprises multiple levels of legal regulation and technical control. It involves numerous state agencies and thousands of public and private personnel. It censors content transmitted through multiple methods, including Web pages, Web logs, on-line discussion forums, university bulletin board systems, and e-mail messages. Our testing found efforts to prevent access to a wide range of sensitive materials, from pornography to religious material to political dissent. Chinese citizens seeking access to Web sites containing content related to Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama, the Tiananmen Square incident, opposition political parties, or a variety of anti-Communist movements will frequently find themselves blocked. While it is difficult to describe this widespread filtering with precision, our research documents a system that imposes strong controls on its citizens' ability to view Internet content. Whilst this is a report from just one agency and may not reflect the actual situation, there is much concern from other sources.

These measures will come under great pressure when visitors come with their vast array of communication equipment. Mobile phones will be abundant. Those who attend the games will either get connections or will not. If they are denied, their experiences will come out when they get back home. Live television reporting from games events will allow an opportunity for placard waving and demonstrations - not every agitator can be traced and arrested as the first visitors fly in.

China is a sovereign country and it is not for me to criticise. I have lived in places where education from outside was deemed a bad thing and most often it made sense to me. It can be very unsettling to go from candles to computer controlled low energy lighting in one bound and this applies to many things we in the modern world take for granted. However, China is very innovative and will soon - if not already - be a major influence on world economy but it will be interesting to see what happens when the circus leaves town. How many Nellies will pack their trunks and creep away?