Being Good Does Not Help

Ask Lu Wei if being popular and doing great things his boss wanted done will get you ahead for long in China.  This guy did some of the hardest things that have ever been done in any country - getting the Internet under control and censorship of the population of people who use it.  It was an impossible task he came close to doing well.  He was the Cyberspace Administration until he lost that post last year.  

When the Russians wanted to know how to get their networks under control, they called him and he came.  He was, after all, the expert who helped create the Great Firewall, the Great Cannon, and the technology that provides the infrastructure for China’s Internet.  His expertise was in policy and politics, but the technology that went into implementing that policy was noteworthy.  At a time when most people thought the Internet could not be controlled, he did almost control it.  

How times have changed.  Too much popularity or power is not a good thing.  There is only one boss in China.  Now he is under investigation for who knows what because the billing says “corruption” which can be almost anything the government wants it to be.  Time to retire.