Professor Chander Authors Essay on Chinese Internet Companies and Censorship for The Atlantic

Professor Anupam Chander has published an essay on "How Censorship Hurts Chinese Internet Companies" in The Atlantic.  In the article, Chander explores reasons behind China's failure to accomplish in the internet services industry the kind of success it has achieved in manufacturing. He finds that government censorship plays a significant role. The essay was adapted from Chander's new book, The Electronic Silk Road: How the Web Binds The World Together Through Commerce.

Chander writes that "given the reports of industrial espionage in the country, foreign businesses may be wary of trusting their internal workings of their computer systems, accounting, or customer relations platforms. As a corollary, companies might also be unwilling to reveal to their customers that they outsource customer personal data to China. In a time-sensitive services environment, uncertainty about whether information flow can be interrupted for political reasons is difficult to tolerate. In this way, the Chinese censorship and surveillance regime undermines China's services exports."

Professor Anupam Chander is a leading scholar in the law of globalization and digitization, and has written widely on international law and cyber law.  He is also Director of the California International Law Center at King Hall.

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