Yesterday, the Chinese government revealed its intent to unblock Facebook and Twitter in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone. In addition to opening a hole in the "Great Firewall of China", the nation is allowing foreign telecommunications companies to bid for licenses to provide Internet services within the zone, a first for China.
The move is meant to encourage foreign direct investment in China. One unnamed source stated, "in order to welcome foreign companies to invest and to let foreigners live and work happily in the free trade zone, we must think about how we can make them feel at home."
However, this move is unlikely to significantly alter the digital marketing landscape in China. Even if reforms in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone were expanded throughout the country via China's traditional "experimentation under hierarchy" bottom-up approach to reform, Facebook and Twitter would still have to compete against entrenched social networking applications such as WeChat, Weibo, and Renren that would benefit from the network effect in maintaining a competitive advantage against foreign social networking channels.
Nevertheless, this move is still worth watching for those who are hoping for more liberal business policies to take root throughout the world's largest market.
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