Chinese-Born Online Encyclopedia Grows As Wikipedia Hits Government Wall

We’re all aware of China’s affinity for censorship. Well, actually, the Chinese government’s affinity for censorship, to be more accurate. Whether its eyes are on the nation’s print news industry, its booming digital media space, or public displays of disaffection, the ruling party and its expansive and very loyal ranks of law enforcers enjoy keeping things as nice, tidy, and uniformly in line with their concepts of allegiance and order as possible.

And let’s face it, a good number of folk elsewhere around the world aren’t too fond of the way things are run over on the mainland. They fail to find the logical benefit to the much-too-close observance by authorities of the flow of information. They think it goes against the grain, that it puts detrimental limits on a great number of societal developments, that it’s generally useless in the long term. And I’d have to agree with such criticisms. If you consider the theoretical possibilities available to an open society, and compare them to those of one closed, it’s clear which as the greater potential to thrive and advance.

Nonetheless, today the Chinese people and the digital information they current consume are censored. That’s a fact. So how best to cater to their quest for greater knowledge, whilst dealing with watchful eyes continuously looking over their shoulders? As BusinessWeek explained in a piece published yesterday, the answer is clear: Baidu Baike.

Baidu Baike, an invention of China’s largest Web-based corporation, Baidu, is, simply put, a copy of the Wikipedia experiment. Only it’s “smart” in that it “blocks politically sensitive entries.” Nifty, eh? Oh yes, so nifty.

The online encyclopedia isn’t new by any means. It was established nearly two years ago, which ranks it as something close to middle age as far as modern technological inventions are concerned. (We can thank Carver Mead, the main man responsible for coining Moore’s Law, for that.)

But Baidu Baike has grown, very quickly, in fact, and is now official the most popular of its kind in China. That’s right, more so than Wikipedia, which just so happens to annoy the hell out of China’s authorities. (What with its perverse openness, its power-to-the-people attitude, and its complete lack of propriety.) Wikipedia don’t jive with the government’s standards, so Baidu Baike’s taken up the slack.

Is that a good thing? Well, yes and no. There’s good in the fact that Wikipedia hasn’t fallen foul to recent trends in China – here’s looking at you, Yahoo! – as far as American business practices in the country go. It’s sticking to its convictions. Quite honorable indeed.

And because Wikipedia and the Chinese government constantly conflict with one another, there’s space for another institution to satiate demand for a comprehensive digital reference package. Baidu Baike fills that role. Now, it might not be perfectly principled as far as thoroughly democratic theology is concerned, but there is a truth resulting from Baike’s growth that should be spoken for: strength in numbers.

Meaning that as Baidu Baike grows – in complexity and in influence – it could very well start to force open cracks where cracks would simply be hastily sealed shut, never to see light, never to stir enough noise to enable change. The people behind Baidu Baike are likely extremely familiar with the terrain of rules and regulations laid by the government. What better way to shake things up than from somewhere on the inside?

Granted, the emergence of a trend toward more openness would certainly require Baidu Baike to be fronted by individuals that share the general desire to expand knowledge of citizens of the PRC. If the encyclopedic project is safely within the hands of those presently in control all other major facets of the information space, it won’t offer any reasonable chance of progression for the country.

But like many businesses in China, Baidu presumably does want to see the nation’s authorities loosen their general hold on things, as such resignations of power would enable much greater expansion of industry, both tangible and virtual. So I’ll hold onto these few ounces of hope I keep for internal shifts to occur on the mainland. Something tells me that if chance is to occur, it’s likely to start where change is pretty much inevitable: Online.