Sorin Adam Matei
Analysis, research, maps, and essays from Sorin Adam Matei.
This article claims that car thieves prefer American cars in Indiana. Absent a very important piece of information, this is a spurious claim. Why? On the Indiana list, the top spot — for the fifth straight year —belonged to full-size Chevrolet pickup…
The location of flight MH370 sinking is under dispute, but in the last few days of March 2014 the search focused around an area the size of Alaska about 1400 miles west of Perth, Australia. Yet, despite much debate and hypothesizing, the…
Chinese cyberspace and social media are rife with rumors about a lingering or barely averted coup. The rumors are associated with the recent sacking of an important provincial Party secretary, the Congqing boss Bo Xilai (see details). The scion of a…
One of the most powerful Chinese regional Party bosses and scion of an old Communist family has been dismissed and his political fate remains unknown. A report published on an unofficial Chinese site reveal much of the current debates and infighting at…
The first 10 years of Chinese membership in WTO and of trade with the US at almost no import/export tarrifs: Chinese rural poverty rate declined from 10 to 3% US families could spend an extra $600 a year on cheaper goods US…
From The New York Times: CULTURE AND CONTROL: Pushing China’s Limits on Web, if Not on Paper “Murong Xuecun, a popular Chinese novelist, often runs afoul of censors, which has pushed him to become a vocal critic of censorship in China and…
Ai Weiwei, whose artistic vision partially inspired the iconic “bird’s nest” stadium, which changed the image of Beijing from a cookie cutter apartment building factory to an emerging world metropolis , has also been known for his vocal opposition to official Chinese…
An US intelligence official confirmed to Financial Times that Pakistan shared with China samples of material and photographs of the US stealth helicopter that crashed during the raid on Osama bin Laden. The helicopter seems to be engineered to avoid radar detection.…
A recent high speed Chinese train crash in Wenzhou highlighted the inequities ordinary Chinese face in everyday life. The actor Ge You comments poetically on the neglect with which the victims were treated: “If a higher-level leader died,” he wrote, “there would…
China announced in a semi-official way that it has two aircraft carriers under construction in Shanghai. This is a surprising piece of news since the two new ships seem to be in addition to the “Shi Lang,” which is under refitting in…
Via Scoop.it – Foreign Affairs Over 30 people died in a collision of two “high speed rail” trains in China. The incident was very sensitive. It highlighted that the recent extension of the Chinese fast train network might’ve not taken into account…
Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn, III announced on July 14, 2011 that in the wake of a massive hacking incident that resulted in the loss of over 24,000 sensitive files from a Department of Defense contractor internal network, any major…
Faceboo dethrones HI5, Orkut and other also ran networks in most countries of the world. Only significant exceptions, Russia and China. via Amazing maps that show how Facebook is taking over the world.
Foreign Policy: It’s way beyond crop circles, blood-red lakes in Iraq, and half-hidden UFOs. Officials from Greece to New York to Switzerland are using the free satellite images to find tax cheats with undeclared swimming pools and illegal pot plantations. Armchair cartographers…
China tightens control over social media, promotes “clean” sites, including official party newspaper site. Chinese officials consider tools like social networking, microblogging and video-sharing sites a major vulnerability. In the past year, they have been forced to block access in China of…
Diplomatic reports indicate that Russia and China move toward putting more pressure on Iran. An encouraging sign. Hopefully the pirce tag will not be prohibitive or increase in value over time. Russia and China Endorse Agency’s Rebuke of Iran By HELENE COOPER…
Image by Telstar Logistics via Flickr E pluribus unum! As the United States racks up ever higher budget deficits, China has bought ever greater quantities of American debt. Now many observers—including the U.S. and Chinese governments—are concerned about imbalances in the relationship…
University of Richmond has invited an extraordinary group of researchers and practitioners to brainstorm on the most likely path history related visualization will take in the future. The main goal is to map the road that will lead to the next platform…
Technorati Tags: mobile,telecommunication,international,china The Economist wonders if China’s statist control of telecommunications can still deliver the kind of benefits free markets can: The reorganisation is the fourth since China first opened its telecoms industry to limited, state-orchestrated competition. Each time the government…
Image via Wikipedia The idea that cultures and societies stay the same is put again to rest by this little piece of news about the increase of the divorce rate in China. WP: Barriers to divorce fade in China – washingtonpost.com Highlights…
Saturday, November 18, 2006 I’m going to say something controversial. I know, I know. The internet is for free speech. It is the last remnant of the American sixties counterculture. It’s about self-expression and information sharing. So why do I think it’s…
The man really is on the list… But so is Michael Gorbatchev, Henrik Ibsen, Albert Einstein or Michael Jordan… Silicon Valley Sleuth: Gates inducted into the Stalinist hall of fame Gates inducted into the Stalinist hall of fame Microsoft chairman Bill Gates…
Follwing up on his smart Weekly Standard article , Andrew Keen posts on this blog, The Great Seduction, a very thoughtful comment on the Google-China debacle. The lack of guilt (doubled by an excess of guile) associated with how the cybergiant treated…
Submitted by: Scott Sanders to the Online Interaction Seminar, COM 632Y, Spring 2006, Dr. Sorin A. Matei, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907. Summary: Social categorization, which is at the heart of SIDE theory, may often prove to be an incredibly powerful…
Google Chief Rejects Pressuring China – New York Times BEIJING, April 12 — Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, whose company has been sharply criticized for complying with Chinese censorship, said on Wednesday that the company had not lobbied to change the…
China has bought all that was for sale in the famed Russian science town, Akademogorsk. Formely the brain behind the Soviet military-industrial complex, the city, just outside Nobosibirsk, in Siberia, has for many post-communist years languished in poverty and despair. Chinese cash…
McCain takes a stance in USA TODAY on the Google-China story: We believe that American companies must develop and agree to abide by a code of conduct governing their interactions with repressive regimes, and we applaud the suggestion by some companies that…
Hearings today in Congress related to the Chinese policy of some major IT companies WASHINGTON – Four U.S. high-tech companies on Wednesday found themselves branded collaborators with the Chinese government in suppressing dissent in return for access to a booming Internet market.…
Congress is busily drafting a law that would prevent IT giants like Microsoft and Google from repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot. The law would prevent US media/telecom companies from hosting major portions of their networks in locations where human rights are…
Answering to criticisms related to its subservient behavior in China Yahoo! seems to be saying “I’ll do it, if Mickey does it first”. Microsoft, that is… » Yahoo Wants Collective Action Against Chinese Web Regulations : Search Engine Journal Yahoo’s basic dilemma…
Yahoo accused in jailing of 2nd China Internet user – Yahoo! News BEIJING (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO – news) provided evidence to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of an Internet writer, lawyers and activists said on Thursday, the second…
The US Congress has started an investigation into the new Google, MSN, Yahoo policies in China. Interestingly enough, Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that the ball is in the government’s court: Google, Microsoft, Cisco, and Yahoo! were yesterday roundly condemned for “collaborating with…
Microsoft figured out a way to avoid coming across as the bad guy… Microsoft says it is setting new policies on shutting down Web journals after its much-publicized squelching of a well-known Chinese blogger at the request of Chinese officials. The Redmond…
… as loud by any other spelling… SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0) – Google (Research) is getting lambasted online for its new policy of accommodating China’s Internet-censorship rules. But with its new Chinese search engine, Google.cn, Google isn’t living up to its reputation…
The New York Times mentions several solutions: The OpenNet Initiative (www.opennet.net), an international human rights project linking researchers from the University of Toronto, Harvard Law School and Cambridge University, tracks Internet censorship and the techniques used to evade it. To surf the…
Here is more information on just what Google is filtering in China, by way of CNET news.com, confirming the point that political and cultural ‘streams’ are under tight control in China. See this link for a table demonstrating what is and is…
The Economist thinks that there is a silver lining in the Google-China story… The fact that Google will indeed use disclaimers and will not unroll services that will make it vulnerable to collaboration with the secret police is something that deserves attention.…
Slate in on the Google-China debacle. A treat! Great Firewall of China By Michael Weiss Posted Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006, at 6:28 PM ET Bloggers are overwhelmingly horrified by Google’s decision to censor search queries in China. They’re also less than thrilled…
It’s official, in exchange for better acess to the Chinese market Google agrees to censor the searches requested by Chinese users. FOXNews.com – Technology News – China’s Google Search Engine to Be Censored SAN FRANCISCO — Online search engine leader Google Inc.…
Since none of our guests specializes in policy issues, especially in an international context, I would like to suggest the following story as a subject of online (via this blog) debate. This is one of the several topics I will propose between…