The recent announcement from Google, Inc. that it will review its business operations in China initially was quite a surprise.
The reasons given include surveillance activities that the company has uncovered, China-originated attacks on human rights activitist gmail accounts and an increase in China’s attempts to limit free speech on the Web . The company says it no longer intends to filter its search results and will discuss this with the Chinese government, realising that this might mean a shutdown of its Chinese operations.
Following quickly on the announcement came a quote from US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton that the US government has serious concerns about the allegations raised by Google and is looking for an explanation from the Chinese government. As far as I understand diplomatic-speak (which for an English speaker is almost as complicated to learn as Mandarin), this means the US is talking tough.
Clinton has weighed in, and she is no loose cannon. So now it seems obvious that this thing has got some legs. It may even run for a while.
On reading Clinton’s response, I immediately recalled US President Barack Obama’s visit to China and that one of the things he (lightly) pressed was freedom of speech. Specifically, when he addressed a group of Shanghai college students, he said:
The more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable.
That Obama’s statement might have conveyed a deeper message to companies doing business in the Internet arena in China would have seemed far-fetched at the time. Only five years ago, Google agreed to self-censor in China. Yet now it has found the courage to double-back on that decision. Why now? Does it think it might have the right amount of support in the right places? Or maybe Google was merely reading the tea leaves (so to speak) and had a fine sense of when to take the high road?
How will the Chinese government respond, is clearly the next question? And for that matter, Google’s competitors?
This is going to grow into something very, very interesting. What a sophisticated fight to pick, if it is indeed that.
I think Google has caught a wave and it is, for its interests, a wave worth riding.
4 Comments
I realize a lawyer can and should only work from the basis of fact but I’m going to don my artsy cap for a moment: given how enshrouded in spook-dom this whole Google caper is, it’s fertile ground for something from the desk of the fiction scribbler. I see a film coming on. Don’t you? ::: quick, don’t tell anyone about it! :::
Here are some of the key questions I asked myself:
** can I get some more clarity on the hacks please? Who? Background? Upbrining? Military (read: PLA) or covert ops? Where? Taiwan, great, yes we know that already…and understandably so, even, but it demands more answers. Why there? What is the island nation cooking up with the Chinese now that it’s no longer illegal to set foot on Mainland soil as a tourist? How else are they selling out?
** why *now*? Why did it take them so long to come around when their competitive IT peers long-ago scaled down their PRC expansion plans? What about the Google capital position/stock price tea leaf reading can we glean from Brin, Schmidt, et al.’s monumental decision? Can we go deeper?
** a glimpse into the netherworlds of the Chinese e-intelligence community, and what makes these various people tick. What do they eat, where do they live, what karaoke bars do they frequent?
Like I said, definitely the work of a good screenplay…
Adam
I agree…it had my ears pricked up as soon as the story broke! You just have to decide if it’s going to be an action-packed edge-of your-seat thriller, apocalyptic scenario (in which the Chinese don’t save the world this time), or brooding Gene Hackmanesque espionage caper!
Of course now the Chinese have defended themselves in typical dry and straight-faced style.
Google seems to have picked up broad support from business and (surprise, surprise) human rights groups, so the expectant next move should come from the US government. But the Obama administration has its hands full right now with the enormous disaster relief efforts in Haiti…so how will the momentum in this be sustained?!
Watch this space, I guess.
What the US gov’t shouldn’t be concerned about is China’s limiting to free speech but their war, their healthcare and their problems, and now, providing aid to Haiti (I sincerely hope the the world can help them rebuild their country). I’m a little cynical even though I’m an American. I mean… Here we go again, digging ourselves into other people’s business most likely in the name of democracy…
No matter what Obama or Clinton say or what the US’s stances are on limited speech, I really hope and believe that as China continues to develop they will allow free speech. Yet, in my opinion, there are still many countries that limit speech and even if it isn’t limited, in some form or way it really is. Free speech is only so “free”.
Additionally, there are many search sites like Baidu and Sina and Google trying to be tough might give them one less of an opponent to worry about (although, I don’t know how much pressure business supporters of Google will affect China’s decisions to shut it down or not).
But what do I know anyway…
Chen
I think yours is a wholly sensible view to take, i.e. that the US has a full domestic and regional agenda anyway and does not need to be the world’s sheriff.
But, I tend to take a different view. The US is the only superpower (at the moment). My argument goes: whether we like it or not, because of its ability to influence the world, the US meddles in other countries’ politics (and many individuals and some countries actually look to the US to do this). And with China as the rising counterpoint, it is not a surprise to me that the US would start to directly comment upon and even seek to influence Chinese domestic policies.
And totally agree with your comment on the business case for Google taking this stance. It would seem like commercial suicide. Which is why I think there is something else going on here.
2 Trackbacks
[...] China is a new law blog on the block, and Geraldine Johns-Putra (GJ-P to the Gen Y set, puh-leeze) just posted an insightful entry about her views on the recent Google-China contretemps. She is an organized thinker, in the mould [...]
[...] as severely, and it chafes very badly, rubbing now against some old wounds. I think that is why I responded straight away to the Google controversy and saw it as being of significance. I was transferring [...]