Google and China

Obviously, China is more vulnerable to the international public opinion in this Google/PRC argument, not only because China’s standpoint in this single event, but also China’s notoriously accumulated bad history in freedom of speech and human rights issues.

I myself is a “pious” gmail user. And I’ve also sent/received emails of which contents are unfriendly to the Chinese government. But I’m far from worrying about the government’s censorship and access to my gmail account, selfishly because I’m still far from “important” to them. But here’s the common psychological logic for many Chinese people: as long as their personal interests are intact, or so they believe, they won’t stand up and protest.

The Google event, in general, just added another piece of supporting evidence to show how terrible the human rights and freedom conditions are in China. People know it. Then some take actions and others not. Google withdrew from mainland China and drew a whole bunch of criticism from “innocent Chinese” cursing Google’s left as part of the US’s “undermining and distablizing China Plan”. Apparently there’s a huge gulf between Chinese’s interpretation and that of the American’s on this issue, which further separated China and Chinese from the mainstream voice in the world and rendered China as a “rogue”.

Google’s the first but not the last one who publicly withdrew from China in a high key. As time goes by, more companies in China will encounter similar dilemmas if the Chinese government won’t change its position and way of doing things. By then, if those foreign companies form a line and withdraw from the market altogether, it would be a deadly blow to China and Chinese economy. China will be politically, economically, and culturally isolated from the world. But the question is, is this scenario possible? Will as many companies as Google do the same? Will these collaborative efforts really force the Chinese government to reform?

Although I’m Chinese, I don’t know the answer to this question. As long as I’m still fighting to remain confident of the Chinese government, I hope China will progress and jump out of this trap.