CHINA’S PRESIDENT XI Jinping and I have a common understanding: we believe that the internet has become the Chinese Communist Party’s greatest enemy, and, if left to take its natural course, the internet will change China. Based on this understanding, Xi Jinping and his government have decided to purge the internet.

Over the past two years, the government has cancelled numerous microblog accounts, shut down untold numbers of websites, arrested countless people and built the great firewall of China – whose primary function is to shut out overseas websites and deny access to unfettered information – higher than ever. But no matter how high the wall becomes, it cannot impede ideas.