As someone living blissfully unaware of the struggles people go through in countries with rampant government censorship -- sorry, <i>control for the public good</i> -- of the Internet, it was a bit a of a shock when I got some first-hand experience.<p>I had a customer that wanted to set up some web servers in China so that they could sign up students for some classes at their school.<p>At first I just assumed that this is a straightforward matter of selecting a Chinese region in a public cloud, deploying a couple of web servers, and we'd be done by lunch. Easy!<p>Turns out... that this is actually technically achievable, as long as: You have a Chinese business registered in China, you have a photo ID that you register with the "local authorities" (in person!), pay in Renminbi from a Chinese bank account, and read and write Chinese.<p>No, really. That's the process. <i>Really:</i> <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/china/overview-checklist" rel="nofollow">https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/china/overview-checkl...</a><p>They want to make sure they have <i>someone</i> by the balls. It's either you personally, or someone willing to step up and take the risk of jailtime on your behalf if you publish anything the Grand Pooh Xi doesn't like.<p>Meanwhile, I can spin up a server in Dubai or South Africa or Brazil like... <i>right now.</i> No paperwork. No prostrating myself in front of the Police to beg for permission to be able to post government-approved content.<p>Meanwhile, on the map of AWS or Azure regions -- or on any CDNs map -- there's just a <i>hole</i> where China is. It's like those photos of Earth from space, where you can see the city lights glowing brightly everywhere except for North Korea, where there's just <i>darkness</i>.<p>Remind me, why do we do business with these people again? Why do we give them our money?