My Take on Google and China

Search engine giant Google took a lot of heat for its decision to cooperate with Chinese authorities by allowing them to block what they consider politically sensitive content. There was an outcry about how Google was sacrificing its principles and aiding a government notorious for its human rights violations. Other search engines such as Yahoo had given in to Chinese censorship demands much earlier and took heat as well, but not as much as Google has.

Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican and chairman of the House human-rights subcommittee was recently asked if US corporations have an obligation to promote democracy. He replied, "It would be great if they would promote democracy. But they do have a moral imperative and a duty not to promote dictatorship."

What is this supposed to mean? Do Americans then also "promote dictatorship" because we buy things from China with part of the money we spend going to support the Chinese government in the form of taxes? Many people would say yes and would advocate that we don't trade with China. But this approached will not solve the problem and it is hypocritical. Americans support tyranny whenever they pay any kind of taxes to any government. American tax dollars have been and continue to be used to do terrible things to people all over the world (as the Panamanian, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Iraqi people can attest to.) I've written about sanctions previously and their contradictions and ineffectiveness. Refusing to trade with people because you don't like their government just doesn't make sense to me and it doesn't work.

Besides, China isn't the only country with censorship requirements. Even the American government attempts censorship when it comes to certain things. Speaking on this issue, Google founder Sergey Brin remarked that, "If a third party makes a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) claim that another party is violating copyright, and that party is not able to counter, then we are obligated to block that. In France and Germany there are Nazi material laws. One thing we do, and which we are implementing in China as well, is that if there's any kind of material blocked by local regulations we put a message to that effect at the bottom of the search engine. 'Local regulations prevent us from showing all the results.' And we're doing that in China also, and that makes us transparent."

Sergey recently expressed some regret for the way the China situation has unfolded. When asked about pulling out of China he said, "That's an alternate path. It's not where we chose to go right now, but I can sort of see how people came to different conclusions about doing the right thing."

The bottom line is that Google is a business. Its purpose is to make money and pursue whatever objectives the owners wish. Every business must deal with government. They are taxed and regulated by it to some extent regardless of where they operate. There is always some compromise that must be made between taking advantage of business opportunities and standing up to government meddling. Google made a decision that was its decision to make and there are millions of Chinese people who are glad they did.

To quote further from Brin himself, "There are difficult questions, difficult challenges. Sometimes the 'Don’t be evil' policy leads to many discussions about what exactly is evil. One thing we know is that people can make better decisions with better information. Google is a useful tool in people’s lives. There are extreme cases, we’re told, when Google has saved people’s lives...Those are extremes, but there are countless other examples. People are helped with their careers. Students are helped when they study. It’s a powerful tool."

A powerful tool indeed. And we have yet to see what effect that the availability of this tool, even in limited form, will have on the Chinese people and the government that tries so hard to control them. Perhaps we should stay our judgment for the time being.