Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has met up with a top official from the Chinese Government body responsible for censoring online content.

Rebecca MacKinnon, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre, talked to Jimmy Wales about the meeting and has posted an article on her RConversation blog.

She says that at a meeting in Taiwan last year Jimmy Wales stated adamantly that neither Wikipedia nor his company will ever agree to a request from Chinese officials to censor content.

And:

" … Google's decision to offer a censored search engine in China, he said last year, was "a bad business decision for Google...When there is a sufficient amount of change that the Great Firewall is torn down, the Chinese people will appreciate that Wikipedia stood its moral ground." … "

In her conclusion, Rebecca MacKinnon, who is a former CNN Beijing correspondent, writes:

" … So far, Western Internet companies working in China, and engaging with Chinese regulators, have inevitably seen themselves changed by the experience. Will a non-profit grassroots citizen media organization be able to maintain a higher moral ground and get Chinese government officials to engage in a public discussion about censorship? Or will the State Council, by pressuring local Wikipedians who are vulnerable to state subversion and state secrets laws, find ways to bend Wikipedia subtly to its will? …"