It's time for the free world to think about locking Communist China out of the Internet, a difficult but perhaps not impossible proposition with aggressive use of domain controls. A solid first step would be terminating all CCP accounts on platforms forbidden to Chinese citizens.
That first step is simply common sense intellectual hygiene. There is absolutely no good reason to allow any official of a regime that blocks Twitter to use Twitter. The CCP has no shortage of willing Westerners to relay any important messages it wants to send.
Communist China's "wolf packs" of social media propagandists should be put to sleep immediately. Aggressive blocking of all accounts from oppressive regimes should be standard procedure. Simple and very reasonable rule: if your regime blocks a service, your regime can't use it.
The next step of locking China out of the Internet would be difficult and could never be completed with 100% effectiveness, but we should be able to shut down most of their main lines of Internet access. This would, among other benefits, make it easier to target their hackers.
The economic shocks from blocking a major amount of Chinese Internet access would be enormous, and well-earned. China wants a little backwater of an Internet under authoritarian control? Fine, but that primitive toxic swamp should not be allowed to pollute the global Internet.
A huge commitment from Western corporations would be required to make this work. They'd lose a bundle of money by quarantining China's poison Internet. The Wuhan coronavirus and China's subsequent online antics should be the last proof we need that the cost is worth paying. /end
Addendum: as long as China throws journalists in jail on an industrial scale and censors foreign writers, no Western media should publish op-eds written by CCP officials. Interview them if you must, with due skepticism, but there is absolutely no reason to give them bylines.
