Bill Clinton, Yahoo and China
Bill Clinton spoke at the China Internet Summit last week, which was hosted by Alibaba.com, Yahoo’s new China partner. [Former] President Bill Clinton was the guest of Jerry Yang and Yahoo, which recently invested $1 billion in a 40 percent stake of Chinese online marketplace Alibaba.com. At the conference Clinton addressed development in China, the role of the Internet, and mentioned Chinese law and the Internet.
On Chinese politics, law and the web : “In China, I think, that so far the political system and restraint on political speech in the Internet has not seemed to have any adverse commercial consequences,” said Clinton. “It will be interesting to see whether that is true of the future.” Clinton’s mention of restraint on political speech was probably a diplomatic jab at the recent Yahoo China controvesy centered around Yahoo complying with Chinese orders to open up the email of a journalist who illegally distributed top secret documents via his Yahoo China Mail account.
Clinton also discussed the role of the Internet and its balancing effect on development reported the Associated Press “Clinton said the use of Internet could help people make better use of energy and make economy develop in a balanced way so that human beings and the nature can coexist in a harmonious way. He warned that the energy consumption required to keep China’s economy growing at its recent rate of more than 9 percent is ‘unsustainable.'”
