The official Chinese news agency Xinhua dubiously reported the existence of a Swedish town called Chako Paul City, a town of 25,000 forbidden to men and guarded by two blonde female sentries who will beat your male ass "half to death" if you try entering. But the report raised as many questions as it answered; for example, it implies visiting men would be left half alive after their ladybeatings, and perhaps might be permitted to penetrate the town's gates and receive gentle care in one of the town's many hotels and restaurants, for "receiving women from around the world."

Chinese men have "swamped... Swedish tourism bodies" (ahem) with such burning questions in recent days, according to the Australian, and millions of them are "crippling the country's internet providers" frantically searching for more details. Yet not one kind, enterprising Web designer has set up a tourism website on their behalf, complete with a ridiculous quantity of AdSense banners and a members-only "Inside the Bathhouses of Chako Paul City" section. Hop to, internet!

(Pic by adamkaras on Flickr)

Bummer. What gives? China wants to encourage "greater 'social responsibility' and 'civility' among users," which is more or less a euphemism for squashing debate about their government. Apparently, chiefs of the news organizations—which are mostly state-run or at the very least, heavily regulated entities to begin with—leaked the news back in July, but later. scrubbed it from their sites. Why wouldn't the Chinese want word of this getting out?

Asked why the policy was pushed through unannounced, the chief editor of one site said, "The influence of public opinion on the Net is still too big."

Hey, go commenters! You have influence on things, something we understand. And want you to have! Here, you're even given the ability (or responsibility) to give and take away voice to those with or without Gold Stars (like that other, uh, republic). Interesting. So! Quick rundown of what China doesn't have on the internet anymore:

Government censors have closed thousands of sites in a continuing war on "vulgarity," closed liberal forums and blogs for spreading "harmful information," blocked access to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and cut off Internet service where serious unrest has erupted, notably in the Xinjiang region of the west after deadly clashes between ethnic Uighurs and Han in July. Increasingly, officials have defended the Web shutdowns on the grounds of national security.

Which basically leaves Dolphin Olympics and, I don't know, Hamster Dance. Not the worst of all possible Internets, but definitely not the best. Meanwhile, in America, you have the right to say FIRST!!11! without us ever knowing who you are, or why you're such a jackass. I'm sure someone would put into place regulatory measures like this to ensure that people like YouTube's commenters have to exist with us knowing exactly who the illiterate moron used what racial slur from where, but, alas, there are problems with this, both in theory and principle. But mostly, practice:

From a comparison of the most commented-on articles in July and August on a number of portals it was hard to determine whether the volume of posts had been affected so far. But both editors at two of the major portals affected said their sites had shown marked drop-offs.

Kai-Fu Lee joined the company back in 2004, when Google was beginning its adventure in earnest and became the giant's President of Google Greater China and vice president for engineering. Unfortunately, mean old Microsoft reared its head and sued Google, for Lee was bound by a pesky "no competition" contract clause. The companies eventually settled, and Google hoped to go full speed ahead into uncharted territories. China's government, however, had other plans, and soon lured the company into its controversial web of censorship and, to add insult to injury, favored competitor, Baidu.

Despite the uphill battle, Google has made a few strides in recent months and gained 6 percent on Baidu. But that means little, because Baidu still controls about 62% of search traffic, while Google has a scant 21%.

Now Lee has abandoned his post to pursue some hush-hush "new venture" in Beijing, and Google's attempting trying desperately to refocus its energies by splitting his duties between two executives while simultaneously double its sales force. After five years struggling to be the big wig, you would think Google would give up on imposing its capitalist ideals amidst an aggressive communist state. But that's the magic of the internet: it's a field of ambitious dreams rife with international and political barriers.

The New York Times today quoted friends of the dead worker, Sun Danyong, saying the logistics staffer and recent college graduate reported being "beaten and humiliated by the factory's security team" over his loss of an iPhone prototype, just before he committed suicide.

Foxconn denied this; then its staff joined a goon who threatened the Times itself with a beating:

A security guard, who was joined by two men wearing Foxconn shirts, threatened to "beat up" a journalist's translator if she persisted in asking the family questions. Foxconn officials later said the guard was not on their staff and might have been with the police bureau.

Foxconn says the worst that happened was that Sun's right shoulder was grabbed during an interrogation. But the company also told the Times it would improve factory management, and that it had paid Sun's loved ones:

The company paid compensation to Mr. Sun's family. It declined to say how much, but Mr. Sun's brother cited a figure of 300,000 renminbi, or more than $44,000, and said Mr. Sun's girlfriend was also given an Apple laptop computer.

Finally, a Foxconn manager told the Times that Sun "several times" had lost products, only to return them.

If Foxconn seems like it's flip flopping, maybe that's because Apple has put the company in an impossible situation: Running labor-camp factories with working conditions Apple itself could never get away with, without tarnishing Apple's sterling brand image. Apple hired Foxconn precisely so it didn't have to get its hands dirty in China. But that's a fantasy, as the fallout from Sun's suicide highlights.

(Pic: Foxconn Apple factory worker — not Sun Danyong — via)

News Corp. has long treated the government in China with a velvet touch, and NBC's parent General Electric, with its huge infrastructure arm, has billions of reasons not to risk their investment in the games with any actual balanced reporting from China. In fact, American corporations like Nike are figuring out that having a state willing to bully and muzzle the press can have its upside. But before you go spinning media conglomerate conspiracy theories — there's a secret memo from Rupert Murdoch himself telling editors to take it easy on China! — remember that it ultimately boils down to individuals making reporting decisions based simply on trying to keep their jobs.

Conley is no stranger to courting the ire of local officials — he and colleague Jeff Rae, who has also been detained, once regaled me over dinner in New York with a story about almost ending up behind bars while covering unrest in Guatemala and southern Mexico a few years ago. And the Iraqi citizens reporting for his site Alive in Baghdad don't just court jail, but death. So Conley and Rae couldn't have possibly been too surprised when, while following fellow foreigners specifically to record their protests, they got caught up in the dragnet.

His company, Small World News, runs on a shoestring budget, and frankly the interest generated by his detention provides the kind of publicity neither he nor Students for a Free Tibet could otherwise afford — but only outside of China. As an entrepreneur trying to build a business, the jail time may ultimately help Conley out. But will it actually change China's policies? As anyone at Google or Yahoo can tell you, complicity with China has proven much more profitable than principles.

1. The dystopic Communist regime will continue.

While some China experts think that democratization is an inevitable first step to total economic domination, Andy Nathan, author of How East Asians View Democracy, believes otherwise. "China has authoritarian resilience," he says. "If (the current regime) was not supposed to survive modernization, it's proving very adaptable." In other words, as long as Hu Jintao's government can prove itself efficient albeit its shortcomings, the people will continue to sustain their loyalty to it.

Nathan does pinpoint one costly solution to bringing democracy and human rights to China. The current regime could be toppled, he says, if China were to be hit with a series of natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and bad political decisions (like if they invaded Iraq and accrued a huge budget deficit... hint hint). If the current regime relies on a certain complacency cushioned by the fact that, while it's oppressive and fucked up, it somehow seems to be working, a mechanical failure of the government machine could unleash the unrest and cause a revolution.

Simply put: The dystopic Communist regime that punishes free will and uses forced labor to build the economy may continue to rule China until a superhuman disaster wipes it out of existence.

2. A giant amount of wind power will up the nation's hip-and-cool factor.

Green tech is the new black—it's the symbol of belonging in the hip and cool country clique. China plans to be the hippest and the coolest by 2020 by becoming the world leader in wind energy. According to EcoWorldly.com, the country currently produces about 6GW of wind energy, which makes it fifth in the world. Some experts believe that China will reach at least 100GW in the next 12 years. That's an increase of 1667%! China still relies a lot on old school energy resources like coal for its imitation Prada handbag factories, but a 2005 legislation mandates all utilities to be supplied by renewable energy. Clean tech funds are being bought up like lychees at street stands.

3. Joe Chen will be the next Steve Jobs.

While engineering is a dwindling profession in the US, it's booming in places like China and India. Only a decade or two ago, students from China entered Harvard and MIT and then stayed in the states to pursue their careers. Now, they're all going back home because they believe that's where they can have the most impact. Joe Chen, for one, is a Stanford grad who founded popular entertainment site Mop.com and Xiaonei, the local equivalent of Facebook. He's going to be the next Steve Jobs, minus the black turtleneck sweater.

Rebecca Fannin, author of Silicon Dragon: How China is Winning the Tech Race, believes that Beijing will be the hub of the next Silicon Valley. China also has the fastest growing number of patents—it's currently seventh in the world—and owns the world's largest Internet market. "Venture capitalists are all looking for the next new thing in China," she says. "Chinese entrepreneurs are hard working and passionate, and they're bringing knowledge from the US back home."

China isn't just the hub of cheap imitation handbags anymore. It is, finally, rapidly and most certainly, inching up the manufacturing food chain and will lead the next major innovation cycle in web-based tech.

4. Beijing will go head-to-head with Dubai in an architectural prestige contest.

Dubai is the world capital of futuristic buildings, but China's not doing so bad either. Beijing already has a crazy new airport, not to mention the Water Cube and the Birds' Nest. Plans to construct a tube-fed eco-city, islands made from scratch, and a Starfleet Academy-like museum are well underway and we should be seeing results within the next ten years. "The government agencies and building companies are going for prestige projects that break the mold," Nathan says. "They're going to continue to go for constant shock value."

We'll see what happens when the cheap IKEA-grade foundations start giving out. Until then, enjoy the cool futuristic citiscapes as they pop up left and right.

5. As China's global market share grows, so will our likelihood of becoming robotic drummers.

Right now, companies like GM, Johnson and Johnson, and Coca Cola produce first and foremost for the US market. But this will change. As the Chinese customer base catches up in size and influence, the way products are marketed and business is done will inevitably shift to meet demand. "American political values are very distinctive," Nathan says. "We believe in guns, we believe in the law, and we believe in religion. If the Chinese were dominant, the global market would be more collectivistic, harmony-oriented, less rights-concious, and more about getting through things without causing a ruckus than about suing people."

Think of Japan and the way the market there still has many of the formalities and customs native to the Japanese. "Values never completely disappear," Nathan says.

There's no doubt that China will be the biggest world market in fifty years. The question is, how is this going to affect what we do and how we do it? Maybe one day we will all become drumming androids and synchronization will supersede individuality. Images: Madiko83 via Flickr, George Lu via Flickr, and AP)

No restrictions of press freedoms will ultimately harm the financial interest by companies like NBC, which paid $900 million for the right to broadcast the games. And technology companies here in the Valley, from Cisco to Google, have found catering to the censorship whims of party apparatchiks to be quite profitable. While the IOC hides behind apolitical rhetoric as China's human rights abuses have accelerated in advance of the games in an effort to sweep the streets of any political dissidents reporters might stumble upon.

As for trying to get past the filters, good luck. Some of the best network engineers in the world, in both China and the United States, have been developing technology to make sure it won't happen while keeping an eye out for anyone who attempts it. It is illegal in China to use encryption without providing the government with the keys they would need to crack it, and the country could obviously care less about the public perception of restricting access or information from the press by whatever means necessary.

Beijing's continued problem with visibility thanks to air pollution serves as a handy metaphor. The economic and industrial boom in the country makes it easy for everyone to overlook abuses and accept obfuscation of the truth as the cost of doing business. And business is good. So while journalists wring their hands and cry about press freedom, you won't see their employers divesting from the country in protest any time soon. (Photo by Simon Osborne)

He told the gathered he agreed with the spirit of the proposals, just not their wording. Then, in the traditional way of voicing support for a cause without taking any real action, Brin abstained from voting them up or down. Lesser spin doctors would have stopped there, but Brin managed to get another couple good ones in before the meeting wrapped: "I'm pretty proud of what we've been able to accomplish in China," Brin said."Google has a far superior track record than other Internet or Internet search companies in China."

No, the problem for Facebook is the appearance of a well-funded competitor in a market Facebook has yet to crack. Entering the China market is a key reason why Facebook took money from Hong Kong telecom mogul Li Ka-Shing. (Ironically, Accel Partners, an early backer of Facebook, also invested in Oak Pacific.)

It would be foolish for Facebook to go out and raise more money simply to match Xiaonei's bankroll; equally foolish to entertain thoughts of buying the company at such a high valuation. No, Facebook's only reasonable choice here is to redouble its efforts to expand into the Chinese market. Engineers who speak Mandarin but have been rebuffed on previous attempts to get into Facebook might find its recruiters more hospitable now.