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From an excellent review of the issues by Rebecca Mackinnon at RConversation
. . . China’s wired elites are able to engage in discussions about social issues and even many policy issues. As Isaac Mao likes to say: ‘Before free speech, we need free thinking.’ The Internet is incubating a generation of Chinese free thinkers - who have got used to debating and acknowledging different points of view - who may over time help to shape a more pluralistic system for their country. But it will take time and there will be plenty of obstacles on the road ahead. Many fundamental arguments have yet to be had about precisely which road the Chinese people want to take. Until recently, those public debates were not possible thanks to media censorship. On the Internet, they are starting to happen.
