It's not the generic 'Chinese' who are at fault, but their government. Economic sanctions, like always, will just hurt the people while strengthening the government's power base.

Its definitely the government, but not officially. Officially there are various technical problems...that are never the ISPs fault. If you get on the phone with them and ask why Facebook is not working, they'll actually say "it must be facebook's problem!". The censorship is not official and all shady, and so going through the WTO doesn't really help.

to a point... enough economic pressure will eventually trigger revolution... or can at least make it very unpleasant for the government to continue it's ridiculous position

How is that working out with Cuba?

> eventually trigger revolution.

These are the Chinese we're talking about..

The government is corrupt enough that they might as well could trigger a revolution themselves someday. Interference from us would hardly matter.

If anything, interference in Chinese domestic matters would solidify the ruling oligarchy's dominance.

Just a few to note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Revolution

Anyone starting a revolution now would technically be labelled as a counter-revolutionary (this is the terminology they use at least).

>These are the Chinese we're talking about..

Is this supposed to mean that the Chinese are too tame and subservient?

They already had a huge communist revolution -- and two more revolutions in the last 120 years (the Boxer and the Hsin-hai Revolution). Even the last 2-3 decades, they had massive strikes and struggles, and the Tien-An Men square thing.

The economic pressure has to be on the people in power, not the man on the street. I doubt those in power are suffering.