If you need a pet story to follow over the next year, Google and China is it. The issues at hand — freedom, human rights, censorship, and the almighty dollar — define, in a microcosm, China’s internal struggle to shape a coherent, enduring image on the world stage. Can China have its cake and eat it too — censorship and repression on one hand, and Western companies that help foster economic growth on the other? The long-term fallout from this story could set precedent for decades to come.
Here’s a quick recap: Google, whose slogan is “Don’t Be Evil”, January revealed that it — along with 22 other companies– was the victim of a cyberattack sponsored by Beijing. As part of China’s intrusion, the Google email accounts of prominent human rights activists were hacked. Here was the company’s conclusion at the time, from Google’s blog:
These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered — combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web — have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. 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, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
After some additional research, the hammer just dropped yesterday:
We also made clear that these attacks and the surveillance they uncovered — combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free speech on the web in China including the persistent blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger — had led us to conclude that we could no longer continue censoring our results on Google.cn.
So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services — Google Search, Google News, and Google Images — on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk.
It is highly likely that Beijing will attempt to censor Google.com.hk, and their efforts will likely test the limits of what has become known as the Great Firewall of China. Unfortunately, I’m not enough of a tech-geek to know how feasible this is, but we’ll soon find out.
But the precedents that Google’s move sets will be far-reaching, and define American internet companies’ role in China for years. Will American corporations join Google, or attempt to replace it? Secretary of State Clinton spoke passionately that American businesses’ refusal “to support politically motivated censorship will become a trademark characteristic of American technology companies. It should be part of our national brand.” But is it too tempting for Yahoo.cn (which exists) and Bing.cn (which doesn’t… yet) to vacuum up the market share Google’s departure leaves hanging out there? And what about slightly more ambiguous cases, like Amazon.cn, which aren’t in the search engine business, but do exist and do provide Chinese with access to information?
And what would be necessary for Beijing to give way? Is there a conceivable scenario under which China might eventually permit unfettered searches of its internet content? And does this spat extend to companies beyond the information sector? Should it? Will the Obama adminstration bring pressure to bear on U.S. companies to, in turn, help pressure Beijing? Will non-information sector American companies abandon China in a mass protest against censorship? It is difficult to imagine any scenario where a major non-censored U.S. corporation forsakes its access to a market of 1.3 billion people, right? But Google’s decision is astounding and could create waves.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shekharsahu/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Tags: Asia, Business, China, democracy, Facebook, free speech, Google, Great Firewall of China, Hillary Clinton, Hong Kong, Internet, Twitter, Yahoo!
