I’m not entirely surprised that Google feels a need to at least threaten to pull out of China.  With the ideals that they say they espouse, and yet compromised on in order to enter China, things would certainly have to come to a point where the two entities would find that they are in conflict.  I have said before that I don’t like Google’s approach to its relationship with China, and so the position it finds itself in now of needing to posture and threaten, and maybe eventually act, doesn’t come as a surprise.  And I can’t imagine why anyone would be surprised at the news that China is censoring this news within its borders.  After all, Google has agreed all along that it would censor the news inside the Middle Kingdom — it is a well-established fact that the Chinese government and bodies (both political and commercial) in the West hold a very different view of the level of access that is owed to the subjects of a given nation.  The disagreement is one of fundamental principles — who has the right to determine what information people receive, and is the access to endless information even a “right” at all?  The two entities, Google and China, have a very different answer to this question, and that difference is coming to the surface now.

I am not one to defend censorship.  I would love to see free access to information offered to everyone in the world.  But, having said that, I have to say that I don’t think the Chinese government is necessarily guiltier than anyone else in the practice of censorship, particularly in connection with information regarding the image projected of the nation.  We all like to control the information offered about ourselves, and in this sense, China is a bit like a vain media hound who wants to appear in a prominent position in the media, but to only be photographed from the most advantageous angles.  In this case, the vanity is matched by the power to control the presentation of that self-image, at least as it is presented to those living within her borders.  And that can be a dangerous combination, as we’ve seen time and time again.

As far as Google’s stand, and that of the US government, I can’t help but shake my head a little.  I think both of those two entities are displaying a level of naivety in their response.  There are a couple of issues that I think reflect this.

First of all, the idea that China is the only government on the planet that is poking into the email accounts of its political enemies is something I just don’t believe.  We should not, just because we happen to align ourselves with the political enemies (human rights activists) rather than the legitimate government (China) in this case, fail to recognize that many — maybe even all — governments are doing the same thing.  Or maybe I am mistaken?  Maybe no one’s “right to privacy” has ever been violated in the name of homeland security?

Is this practice right?  Do governments have the authority to poke into the private communications of citizens (or even non-citizens communicating within its borders) for the sake of the nation’s security?  And do we on the outside of a nation’s politics have the right to determine which people can be subject to such scrutiny by the government and which cannot?  Point in fact:  if political bodies in, say, Afghanistan or Iraq — or the US — were snooping around in the gmail accounts of Al Qaeda operatives, would Google respond in the same way that it is to China’s alleged meddling with the accounts of human rights activists in its territories?  I believe that most people involved in this case (at Google and within the US government) would take a different line if they believed, like the Chinese government does, that the targets of these “attacks” presented a danger to the public security and stability.

The second point that I think demonstrates a naive approach to the situation in China is that Google, it seems to me, really believed it was going to change the landscape of China’s “human rights” situation.  Even in the present situation, it looks like Google and the US government believe (or at least hope) that the possibility of losing Google’s service within the Middle Kingdom is enough to make the Chinese government come, trembling in fear, to a place that is more in line with the values of the West — or at least in line with the spoken (as opposed to the lived) ideologies of the West.

It’s not going to happen.

China is growing by leaps and bounds, and it believes (with good reason) that the catalyst for its growth has come from its internal resources.  The help it has had from the outside certainly injected an amount of energy, accelerating the growth exponentially.  But the fact is, the groundwork had been laid, though sometimes through extremely unpleasant means, by the internal reforms made by the Chinese themselves.  Having Google around is certainly a nice way to continue the progress made, but I doubt that China sees it as a vitally essential ingredient in the ultimate success of the nation.

It seems to me that, in making the compromises it has made in order to operate in China, Google just might have set itself up to suffer a huge loss for itself when/if it pulls out of the country.  Surely it’s no secret that Google was attracted more by the huge market available in China than it was by some altruistic motive to somehow “free the minds” of the Chinese people.  I may be jaded, but I have never believed that the primary aims of Google in its interaction with China was for the good of the Chinese people.  Google aimed to do what was good for Google, as do all companies in a capitalist system.  If it was all about doing something good for the people of China, then Google could have operated as a nonprofit organization.  And, last I heard, it does not.  The bottom line is still, for Google, business.  (And a more open market in China is good for business, isn’t it?)

China might lose out to some degree, but it won’t be the big loser here.  Google agreed going into this deal to play by China’s rules, and I believe that, in doing so, the company entered a game it could not win.  Google.cn might soon be no more, but it will be replaced more easily than the information provider thinks it will.  Who knows?  As soon as the pullout is decided and announced, there might just be a knock-off version of the search engine available before you can blink an eye.  What do you think — shall we call it Giggle.cn or Gaggle.cn?

Because you see, that’s just how things operate in China.  There are rules.  Learn them.  Then find your own way around them.  But don’t expect to come imposing the rules on the owners of the house — especially not a set of rules brought in from the outside.  Might Google’s compromise have worked in the long run?  Yes, I think it could have… but not with a company so deeply embedded in a culture of rule-keeping and moralizing.  And more importantly, it could succeed only if the  company remembered its place in this relationship — not only is Google a guest on Chinese soil, but it is also an entity without the long, rich history that is so valued by the Chinese mind.  For a young pup like that to come into the house and think it can start to run things…. well, it’s not surprising if it finds itself sleeping outside.