No one had expected the digital revolution in China to unfold in quite this way. In the 1990s, in the wake of Tiananmen Square and the subsequent government crackdown, it was an article of faith in Washington that the Internet would change China more than China would change the Internet. No one believed this more fervently than Bill Clinton. During a presidential visit to Beijing in 1998, he told students at Beijing University that the digital revolution meant one thing for them: more democracy, albeit with Chinese characteristics.
