ABSTRACT
The notion of the Internet as an unstoppable force of political liberalization faces serious questioning today, and many now discount this "cyber-utopianism". This chapter overviews the Internet development and control in China. It discusses the possibility that Xi Jinping's rise to power has corresponded with a dramatic shift in the overall media landscape, in China and right across the world that in many ways has made it far more feasible for the Party to achieve more sustainable dominance of public opinion at the expense of competing agendas. The possibility of co-opting the Internet was a foregone conclusion in China, regarded from the outset as a matter of political necessity. In the economic reform push of the 1990s, following Deng Xiaoping's "southern tour", state subsidies for media were reduced and they were pushed toward greater financial autonomy. The eradication of China's first generation of domestic microblog services in fact marked the beginning of the country's microblogging era.
