14
Jan
Google to China: Drop Dead
It should come as no surprise to anyone — least of all to Google founding whiz kids Sergey Brin and Larry Page — that reporting of their company’s recent announcement that it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship was itself heavily censored in China. Although, as the New York Times noted, “Some big Chinese news portals initially carried a short dispatch on Google’s announcement,” news of the decision “soon tumbled from the headlines.” Later reports omitted all references to “free speech” and “surveillance.”
Google is said to be considering shutting down its entire operation in China, and has predictably been getting lots of love and props in the blogosphere for doing the right thing and standing up to the Chinese “Evil Empire.”
But does a company with a stated corporate goal of “Don’t Be Evil” really deserve praise for finally pulling the plug on its longstanding cooperation with the Great Firewall of Chinese Internet control?
I think not.
After all…what took them so long? Chinese leaders — with lots of help from American corporate giants like Google, Yahoo and others — have been using advanced information and communications technology for years in order to suppress information, communication, knowledge and dissent in the world’s most populous country.
Google execs linked the decision to pull back to extremely sophisticated (state-sponsored?) cyber attacks on its systems last week – aimed at the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. But given the dismal overall track record of Chinese suppression, how in all reality could they have been surprised by China’s latest attack on freedom of speech?
Since entering into its cozy and sleazy 2006 arrangement with China’s Market-Leninist regime, Google has readily eliminated banned topics (like, “Tiananmen Square” or “Dalai Lama”) from its Chinese search results — thus aiding and abetting a system of information control that is among the most restrictive in the world. At the time, company officials said that they thought that the benefits of its presence in China – ostensibly providing more information and openness to Chinese citizens — outweighed being forced to censor search results. And the company has been roundly criticized – including by this writer – for doing so. But despite some muted internal grumblings, Messrs. Page and Brin, along with Google CEO Eric (“The Internet is a cesspool of misinformation”) Schmidt, have steadfastly refused to respond – until now.
In all likelihood, they are using the current contretemps to step back from a costly investment and what increasingly was a money-losing proposition, having steadily lost market share of late to Baidu, a Chinese-run company with predictably “close ties with the government.”
So while it is true that “Google’s response amounted to an unambiguous repudiation of its five-year courtship of the Chinese market,” it is equally true that Google has long had the wherewithal, if not the cojones, to tell the Chinese to take their Internet job and shove it. Because it’s also true that, despite the fact that most major multinational companies consider a presence in China crucial to their future, Google — the most successful corporation in the history of the world — needs China less than China needs Google. And if the Googlers’ decision is likely to enrage Chinese authorities, who of course shamelessly deny the obvious fact that they censor the Internet and are by now used to American corporations and governments kowtowing to their supposed might, I can only respond, “Great!”
Screw the Chinese so-called “authorities!” After all, their alleged authority and indisputable power is solely derived from “the barrel of a gun” – as their founding father Mao Tse-Tung once put it.
And their only means of maintaining their increasingly illegitimate power is to rigidly control basic political freedoms and rights of the Chinese citizenry.
If Google does pull back — not at all a done deal, of course, despite the many glowing notices — it says it will try to negotiate a new arrangement to provide uncensored results on its search site, google.cn.
As Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond said in a statement, “We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law.”
Fat freakin’ chance of that!
Instead, it’s likely that the eventual result will be Google shuttering its offices in China and turning its back on an estimated $300 million a year in revenue.
That would be good for China’s human rights activists, good for the rest of us – and even good for Google. Just don’t expect me to congratulate them for thinking, at long last, about doing the right thing.
C’mon guys — it’s easy! Just “Don’t Be Evil…”
One thing I find consistent in coverage of this is a misunderstanding of how active Google is in ‘censoring’ data in China. While many companies do prodive firewall technology to the Chinese gov’t, as noted, google.cn simply does not display search resuts for sites that people within the Great Firewall cannot access. Search for “Dalia Lama” on google.cn in the US or UK and you’ll get tens of millions of results, but within the Great Firewall it is, of course, a lot less. Why would a search engine show results people cannot go to? The other option is to constantly remind people of what is censored and what they cannot access? No search engine anywhere would do that. Google is simply a pragmatic for-profit company, and NOW resorting to a ‘moral high ground’ to get out of a bad investment is certainly cynical and insulting to those who believe in free access to information. But it is nothing to do with Google itself, that is capitalism. In the end Google will maintain it’s anit-evil moral facade, the Chinese government will keep it’s Great Firewall, baidu.com and dozens of other Chinese-made search engines will gain business, and those in the mainland who really want to get access to ‘censored’ information still will do so through proxy servers, email and other methods. To expect a capitalist country to stand for morals above profit is too naive, no one should hail Google for it is only saving its bottom line. It is not standing up to anyone! If the people of China want change it is up to them, it cannot be imposed upon them by a foreign company with so-called ‘benevolent’ intentions.
January 14th, 2010 at 6:48 amOverall you are probably correct that Google isn’t doing this purely based on moral principles, but neither is it merely trying to increase revenue. While keeping its Chinese operations open may drain revenue, this maintains access to a huge market which may expand in the future.
The biggest flaw in this article, however, is the excessive demonification of the Chinese government. CCP (Chinese Communist Party) leaders are not inherently evil, and they don’t ALWAYS rule by “the barrel of a gun.” Governance and control of the population in China is complex and constantly changing, and blindly shouting that the Chinese government is an “Evil Empire” isn’t doing any good.
I don’t agree with most of China’s information censorship policies, but as much as we want to vent our frustration over these problems, its more productive to take a more nuanced look at China… from both Chinese and foreign perspectives.
January 14th, 2010 at 7:23 amThe reason the CCP get the “Evil Emipre” rap is because, well they are.
They control the population by controlling information. If people don’t have access to all information, they can’t make their own decisions and are forced into believing whatever you want them to. If everything you ever read, or watched said that ice cream gave you cancer, and you weren’t allowed to read contridicting reports, you and everyone is the same situation as you, would believe ice cream causes cancer.
Sure free press has it’s downsides. You’ll read in one article that Ben and Jerry promote a cancer causing substance, and another that says Ben and Jerry are the fitness leaders of our time. This causes the reader to do something most people in the US are too lazy to do: Think.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:24 amIt is true that Google managed to rationalize its participation in censorship in China. Google is no angel. Yet I would give it half a point for finally coming around.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:24 pmI can well understand China’s position. There has been numerous pornographic photos and the parent of young children aren’t happy.
I have no problem communicating with people in China and I’ve had no messages returned.
I strongly believe when we are in foreign countries we must obey their laws the same as we would expect foreigners in this country to do so.
January 14th, 2010 at 1:25 pmI think that it takes a lot of spine to do what Google is doing. I salute them and wonder about people like a previous person that says we should respect foreign governments. That is like saying we should have respected Adolph Hitler, Ede Amin, etc. Chamberlain was a person who respected what Hitler said and tried to appease a bully.What happened then will happen again. It is time for all people who enjoy freedom to stand up to bullies and take a stand. It is too bad that the world falls all over China to trade with them while most Chinese, except for a very few, have very little income and less freedom than most people in the world. If we condone this behavior by China, who and where will it happen to next time?
January 14th, 2010 at 7:11 pmCheckmate: Your thesis seems quite contradictory. If people in the USA, with supposedly the most free access to information, and for such a long time, cannot use their highly developed giany monkey brains to tell if ice cream causes cancer or not, then what does that say about free info suddenly coming about in China having the same effect? Talk to people from former Communist countries sometimes, the often have better skills to read between the lines of media/propaganda than those from ‘free’ countries.
Wilf: You could add Saddam Hussien or Ahmenijad to that list. Saddam was sponsored by US for years, only becoming ‘evil’ when he stopped obeying orders, hence becoming a ‘threat’. Since then how many millions have died in Iraq, not just in current war but due to sanctions in the 1990s. And now Iran, a country that has never invaded its neighbours and has also been subject to internal interference by US/UK for a hundred years, is a threat because it will not obey US rules? History does repeat itself, but to always look at it from a “US is ALWAYS acting to defend the free world” perspective will always fail.
January 15th, 2010 at 2:29 amAnd you’re ignoring the role of WWI victors in establishing the conditions for someone like Hitler to come to power: humiliate a nation, make it resent you, that leads to a nationalistic leader coming to power. Hitler was elected in a democracy, remember?
Anyway, the point is that Google is not standing up to any bully for moral purposes; if it could make money in China it would and it would shut up, but it cannot, so it predents to be moralistic to curry favour. If it really did care then it would have never gone into business with China in the first place!
This article was written by someone who presumably has never been to China or experienced Chinese culture.Mr. O’Connor has blindly bought into the lies and propaganda of America and the American media.
Google holds only about 1/3 of the search engine business in China. Baidu, the top Chinese search engine beats Google hands down because it gives the Chinese what they want in a search engine. Google, like every other Internet technology company that thought it could come to China and tell the Chinese what they want and need has failed to win them over. Chinese Internet products and services give the Chinese what they want. That is why My Space, Yahoo, E-Bay have all failed in China. They do not know, nor do they attempt to discover what the Chinese people want.
Americans - like Mr. O’Connor - are fantastic at telling the Chinese what they want instead of finding out what they truly want. Consider the fact that only 6% of the Chinese population - 1,222,000 out of 1.3 billion people - would want to move to America permanently. The motivating reasons: job and educational opportunities. Those are things that concern the Chinese people - not idealist things like human rights and democratic principles.
Google is now playing a game that it cannot win. Throwing the gauntlet down to Beijing, which has not only the home court advantage but also wrote the rules, is not a wise thing to do. Beijing will win.
The Chinese people are not dissatisfied with their government. It has done major things for them in the last 20 years. It has brought more people out of poverty in that period than any other country in history. When the earthquake hit China in 2009, the government took quick, decisive actions. Housing was quickly built. The infrastructure was quickly re-built. Meanwhile, in America, after 5 plus years, New Orleans is still not settled after Hurricane Katrina. The Chinese people are very happy with their government.
When the economic crisis hit, the Chinese government responded quickly and decisively. It enacted stimulus projects that were all up and running within 6 months. Meanwhile in America, everyone is still fighting over stimulus money that hasn’t been spent, and stimulus projects that still haven’t gotten off the ground. Unemployment exceeds 10%.
The Chinese people understand that too many cooks can spoil the soup. They can look at America and see the flaws of American democracy. They want no part of it. They would appreciate it greatly if the ‘do gooders’ in America would keep out of Chinese affairs and issues.
January 16th, 2010 at 6:19 am