Reply to post: Re: Is it Time?

Re: Is it Time?

If you'd like an opinion, here's mine: No.

Cutting countries off the internet is bad because it's hard, it gives them extra power, and it harms us. I'll take each point in turn, but these are short summaries. Also, I've used China as an example below for two reasons. First, it's annoying to write and to read "Russia, China, Iran, and countries like them" all the time. Second, the problems I detail get infinitely worse the larger the country and the more activity links them and us, and on that basis China is the most dangerous.

It's hard: In order to disconnect China from the internet, we have to disconnect their lines and/or drop all traffic coming out of them. If we try to cut the lines, we will need to reconnect other places which currently use China's lines for transoceanic communication. Mongolia is going to be the worst hit since they're entirely enclosed by China and Russia, but you have some other countries in southeast and central Asia whose lines are going to need to go through India, meaning getting Pakistan on board and going through war-torn areas. Then, you have to imagine that China will try to work against this, for example by using existing lines that go into Vietnam and masquerading as Vietnamese traffic. Do you really expect Vietnam's government to take drastic action to stop this with one of their closest allies and one with a massive army quite invested in it continuing to work? Of course, any espionage would be much more hidden than that, perhaps starting by going through Myanmar but quickly bouncing to servers in the west operated by agents in some other country.

It helps the countries we are trying to hurt: China spends a lot of money protecting itself from terribly dangerous network traffic containing things favorable to democracy. By cutting off that traffic, they don't have to bother anymore. The important government services will still run on local systems through local comms, so the citizens shouldn't be that affected. And when they are anyway, there is a perfect target: the west. "The west has cut off your internet. They do not like us Chinese. They are the enemy. We didn't do it; they did. Why would you support them?"

It hurts us: Currently, we rely on China for various things. It might be better if we didn't, but we do. We buy from and sell to China, collaborate with Chinese research institutions, all that. If we cut off the communication between us, we have to stop most of that and don't expect what is left to continue for long after the governments start looking for revenge. This means that we cannot get things from there, make money there, or do anything to help the people living there get some rights.

It hurts us even longer: That was what happens in the first month or two, but let me prognosticate a bit further. If we decided to cancel our business relationships in China, which we really might like to do, people interested in human rights might be pleased. People who used to make a lot of money in China, however, won't be so happy. It will be in their interests to bring back their profit stream, and they will try. The easy way to do that is to lobby for new politicians who will restore the ability to trade in China, in return for which the Chinese government will demand various assurances from said country. If Singapore, for example, reopens its internet to China and starts buying things from them, do we give up on this exercise, cut off Singapore too, or wait for the same to happen to us? None look viable to me.