I would be curious to see your results regarding those other Asian countries and whether they are as far from the English internet as China. If you publish it somewhere give us a link.

On the other hand, inferring from China’s success that it has a “a superior political, strategical and economical culture” really seems like a stretch to me. Good management and successful reforms? Definitely. But for me it looks like people get over-enthusiastic just because of China’s sheer size. It’s not unlike the previous “tiger economies” technically or economically, it’s just much bigger.

Linguistic is probably the biggest reason that separates China from the rest of the world in both ways. Actually this applies to any two countries that speak different languages. However, IMO Chinese is more exposed to western cultures than people in western countries to Chinese culture. I’m not saying there’s no misunderstanding or prejudice of western countries in Chinese minds (in fact quite a lot) but giving the strong influence of western culture in China and the increasing number of Chinese who are studying English (mandatory in many elementary schools), I have to say Chinese on average knows their counterparts better than the reverse. This is especially true in the case of expats where most Chinese overseas citizens are students or business people who master the native language in a level of basic conversation while a lot English teachers and businessmen in China can barely speak Chinese. That’s probably why you hardly hear Chinese expats grumbling on the host countries’ domestic affairs (except for their media’s view on China) while a lot expats in China made many complaints. On the Internet censorship, I believe censoring English websites did much less than blocking Chinese expats’ websites in Chinese. How many Chinese read English articles on Chinese issues or international news? Instead most knowledge of foreign countries comes from Chinese news (official and expats’ blogs/forums). Ironically, Chinese overseas as a group are, generally speaking, pro-government and have less “foregien-moon-is-rounder” illusion than people in China.

Anyway, things are improving. China has just opened its door to the world for 30 years and so much communication has already been done than probably the last 5000 years combined. I see more challenge than rivalry. There’s a contest between China and the west, in a who-is-the-winner-to-know-other-better competition. The winner will learn lessons faster and have an upper hand in future.

I think Uln just had to decide on the flag of the sovereign nation now ruling the area whence came the language. So no English flag, since it’s not sovereign (since 1707), and no American flag, since it’s a daughter country, not the source of English.

Similarly, the Yellow River valley is controlled by the People’s Republic of China. Also, the Republic of Korea has more people than the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, so its flag is shown. (Perhaps Korean culture came more from what’s now controlled by the North, but who really knows?) Cf. Spanish flag instead of Mexican, Portuguese flag instead of Brazilian, Saudi flag instead of Egyptian, German flag instead of, well, never mind.

So, though the ROC (Taiwan) may need to be noted in the text, it’s not home to one of the top-10 languages on the net.

With Facebook, twitter, youtube and so many other things blocked in China for the foreseeable future, I’ve been thinking of switching over to local equivalents (language not a problem – I’m an expat that has spent almost 2 decades in greater China), but have been having trouble figuring out which is which, or in the case of youku, how to find things on it. Could you possibly provide some pointers? I don’t want to be left out of the Web 2.0 anymore.

Thanks

Mike