article_snippet: But China's Great Firewall  --  a massive Internet surveillance and content control system -- has, in many respects, been an unparalleled success.
article_snippet: China has Internet companies worth billions of dollars and more web users than the population of the United States -- all while still being able to block information China deems counter to China interests.
article_snippet: Soon after China tip-toed onto the Internet in the late 1980s,
article_snippet: Soon after China tip-toed onto the Internet in the late 1980s laid down the foundation of the Great Firewall but critics asserted that an Internet with Chinese characteristics would be no Internet at all.
article_snippet: During a high-profile media tour in Beijing in 1999, MIT Media Lab founder and technology pundit Nicholas Negroponte declared that a "healthy disrespect for authority" was required for any successful Internet industry.
article_snippet: A year later, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton announced that "liberty will spread by cell phone and cable modem" and that any attempt to control the Internet in China would be "like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
article_snippet: Currently home to the world's largest Internet market, China is also home to some of the world's most valuable Internet companies including e-commerce giant Alibaba and Tencent, now estimated to be worth $66.1 billion.
article_snippet: China has fostered the development of the Internet by offering incentives for local entrepreneurs while building walls to keep big Western rivals out.
article_snippet: From Beijing's perspective, there's this fear that if we open up the Internet then it will be chaos.
article_snippet: Lu Wei is really pushing this 'Internet sovereignty' model, where we can control the information, we can control the Internet within our borders and our will use our model," says Roseann Rife, the East Asia research director of Amnesty International.
article_snippet: It would be obviously in China's interest for other people and other nation states to agree with other people and other nation and other people and other nation interpretation of Internet sovereignty.
article_snippet: That is precisely China's vision of how the Internet should be.
highlights_snippet: China's "Great Firewall" is a massive Internet surveillance and content control system .
  
highlights_snippet: Critics said China's "Great Firewall would stifle business but now Chinese Internet companies are worth billions .
  