In 2000, then US president Bill Clinton famously said in a speech that he was confident the rise of the internet would push China towards democracy.
“There’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet,” he said. “Good luck. That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.”
There were 22.5 million internet users in China in early 2001. By last year, that figure had ballooned to 989 million – more than three times the entire population of the United States and exceeding the 639 million internet users in India, according to the state-run China Internet Network Information Centre.
