The Internet, as we all know, came later to China. Today, we are told that Sohu.com is the largest portal in China, but a lapsed Yahoo-ite says that Yahoo is in actuality far bigger.. In China.. all is not as it seems...

An important article from the Weekly Standard examining the Chinese internet and how western companies work within the system - but also an industry case study in the complexities and moral dilemmas of working in China -

Who Lost China's Internet? -

Extract: When Chinese authorities ordered Microsoft to surrender its software's underlying source codes--the keys to encryption--as the price of doing business there, Microsoft chose to fight, spearheading an unprecedented Beijing-based coalition of American, Japanese, and European Chambers of Commerce. Faced with being left behind technologically, the Chinese authorities dropped their demands.

Theoretically, China's desire to be part of the Internet should have given the capitalists who wired it similar leverage. Instead, the leverage all seems to have remained with the government, as Western companies fell all over themselves bidding for its favor. AOL, Netscape Communications, and Sun Microsystems all helped disseminate government propaganda by backing the China Internet Corporation, an arm of the state-run Xinhua news agency.