The Politics of Banning Ivory in China

A China in Africa Podcast

By Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more on April 2, 2015

In February 2015, China announced a one-year ban on ivory imports. While many conservation groups such as the Environmental Investigation Agency denounced Beijing’s policy as “ineffective,” the San Francisco-based group WildAid said the ban is an important step in the right direction and part of a broader Chinese policy shift towards more progressive wildlife protection laws.

Collin Anderson

on April 1, 2015

Collin Anderson is a Washington, D.C.-based researcher focused on measurement and control of the Internet, including network ownership and access restrictions, with an emphasis on countries that restrict the free flow of information. Through open research and cross-organizational collaboration, these efforts have included monitoring the international sale of surveillance equipment, identifying consumer harm in disputes between core network operators, exploring alternative means of communications that bypass normal channels of control, and applying big data to shed new light on increasingly sophisticated restrictions by repressive governments. These involvements extend into the role of public policy toward promoting online expression and accountability, including regulation of the sale of surveillance technologies and reduction of online barriers to the public of countries under sanctions restrictions. In 2013 he was a member of the Annenberg-Oxford Institute faculty.

New Chinese Cyberattacks: What’s to Be Done?

By Steve Dickinson, Jason Q. Ng & more on April 1, 2015

Starting last week, hackers foiled a handful of software providers that promote freedom of information by helping web surfers in China reach the open Internet. The attacks that drastically slowed the anti-censorship services of San Francisco-based GitHub and China-based GreatFire.org emanated from computers around the world.

Isaac Mao

on April 1, 2015

Most recently the founder of smart-headphones company Aivvy, Isaac Mao was described as the first blogger in China by The Guardian. He co-founded cnblogs.com in 2002 to evangelize grassroots publishing and sharing in China.

At the Social Brain Foundation, which Mao built up starting in 2005, he supported a series of initiatives in China to advocate and practice free access, free speech, and free thinking. He also brought the Creative Commons project into China.

In 2009, Isaac coined the term “Sharism,” to describe a new philosophy that explains how a fully connected world transforms its society and all human beings, and possibly relates to an emergent super intelligence. Sharism was acknowledged as an “Idea of the Future” at the Davos Communication Forum.

As a symbol of his strong stance against censorship in China, as well as around the world, his 2007 open letter to Google's co-founders called global attention to the responsibilities of multinational enterprises to support Internet freedom. Later, as a board member on the Tor Project and an adviser to Global Voices Online and GreatFire.org, Mao fostered more global collaborations to conquer censorship with both technical and social solutions.

Mao is regular speaker at the World Economic Forum, the Web 2.0 Summit, Wikimania, the Chinese Internet Research Conference, Ci'Num, PICNIC, and other global digital culture events. He also was a jury member at Prix Ars and Deutsche Welle's The Bobs awards.

China’s Government Is Serious About Fundamentally Reshaping Itself

By Rebecca Liao on April 1, 2015

Respected China scholar David Shambaugh recently set off a firestorm among other China specialists when he predicted the collapse of China’s ruling Communist Party in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. Beneath many of the arguments in his defense was the assumption that China’s Communist Party (CCP), bent on maintaining control, would fail to implement necessary political reforms and would therefore eventually lose legitimacy.