Google's controversy in China
China has long been criticized for its censorship policies, internally and externally. With the creation of the Internet and the sudden influx of free information, censorship become more difficult, but China managed to control what information residents are able to obtain by blocking certain sites and having censorship controlled search engines.
When Google first entered the country it agreed to implement a censored version of its search engine. This was viewed by many as a step forward for the some Chinese residents, as Google was not as heavily censored as some of China’s own search engines, such as Baidu.
However, many other countries viewed this with anger as an affront to the freedom of information. Now, Google is rethinking its initial stance on China and threatening to withdraw. This decision came after cyberattacks originating from China hacked into the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google claims that its decision for withdrawing came from the security risk that remaining in China entailed: just before Google announced its intentions, Hillary Clinton had met with the company and discussed censorship and freedom of information issues.
Others think Google’s withdrawal may have had more to do with political or economic issues. While Google is the largest search engine in most of the world, it is not in China. The national search engine Baidu remains by far the most used search engine, and as a consequence it has actually become economically unwise to remain in the country. Google employs around 900 people at its office in China, and costs of being there outweigh the profits. Therefore, some speculate that the news of cyber-attacks is only an excuse to exit China for economic reasons.
At Washington International School, we currently have a Chinese exchange student, 11th grader Yifan Liu. She, along with the exchange student from last year who is back in China, Xiao An Wang, and another student who lived in China for four years, 12th grader Charlotte Matthys, each have their own opinions on the issue. Both Xiao An and Charlotte used Google while in China, while Yifan primarily uses Baidu, which may be a contributing factor on their opinions. Xiao An and Charlotte both said that they and their friends would be greatly inconvenienced by not being able to use Google. As Charlotte stated, “If I could not have used Google it would have affected my everyday life hugely because for a lot of my research projects I used Google. Google was the source where I found all my resources, as it is the most reliable server. I think that if Google would leave China my friends in China would be affected greatly by it because they use it on an everyday basis.”
On the more political front, Xiao An is neutral; as she says, “All I care about is if I can get information whenever I need it. Seriously I don't care a bit about the politics thing. I am not with the Chinese government and I am not with Google the company. I really think whoever made the decision has done something not bad but really inconvenient to me.” Yifan also does not want Google to withdraw from China, and she agrees with China's censorship policies, as shesays, “While developing, there are more and more problems now in China. The government is not able to fix all of them at one time, so they have to do this to give themselves time to solve the problems one by one. For example, Falungong, it seems ridiculous for educated people how they join politics and religious together and try to make people believe in them. [...] As there are tons of information on Facebook and Youtube talking about Falungong or whatever that is against the Chinese government, the government decide to block them. Furthermore, the government block more porn websites than those websites against the communist party. [...] I just want to show that there is a reason for the government to block the Internet and it’s not all because politics.”
Charlotte had a slightly different approach to China's censorship policies: “I think the real reason is that China used Google's own servers to hack into the accounts of those human rights activists. I remember that when I was in China some of our emails didn't even arrive to their destination or we did not receive e-mails because they hacked into our accounts. I think that the reason is both political and security. China is very insecure that they are very paranoid about anything that could affect their image for the world. They fear that if they have a bad image their economy will be affected by it.”
As the situation continues to unfold, Xiao An thinks that all could be best resolved if “they can negotiate. Just stand at the other's position, each side takes back a step and the problem could be solved.”
Tags: China, Google, east_asia, technology
Replies to This Article
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Permalink Reply by Harry Cross on -
Thanks for the article Rosemary, it was a very interesting read. I wonder though if Xiao An (whether she realises it or not) is indeed politically neutral when she says "all I care about is if I can get information whenever I need it" or if, when saying that, she in fact takes a stance considering the principles of the Chinese government and those of Google or of freedom of information on the web.
Thanks,
Harry
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Permalink Reply by Clayton Lewis on -
Rather ironically, I learned today that Ning sites are not accessible in China. Hence, no one there can read this article through conventional means.
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Permalink Reply by David Harrison on -
Luckily it seems that we can get Ning in China this month. It appears that Ning unlike f-book and tw-er are exempt at the moment. The main reason for this I suspect is that there are no postings on this site in Chinese. So that powers that be will leave it alone.
So just a comment on anyone else living in this massive country, for the moment please no Chinese comments and then this site will stay open for us to have a say out of of little firewall!
David Harrison
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Permalink Reply by Neil Marais on -
Obviously I do not know the full extent of the censoring in China. But I do believe that everyone has the right to freedom of knowledge and they should not be deprived of any benificial or non-harmful information. Obviously information that could be used by certain people to harm others should be inaccessible. But this is a great article and could be a very intersesting topic to bring to the table in my school's (Bishops Diocesan College) Global Issues Network group.
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Permalink Reply by David Harrison on
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A good article. Luckily for us Google has not pulled out of China yet and is not even "blocked" - this country does no block sites, so it says. But we can not access the beloved f-book or tw-er. At least we can get Ning for now.
It is a hard question to decide whether or not Google C should or should not pull out. They have not as yet, nor have they changed their filtering. Yes when you use the mainland based search it gives different results to the U.S search, but before we point fingers, are other countries being totally open and allowing us to see everything we want to see?
Living in C is different to visiting it or commenting on it from outside. Even though there are millions of English speakers here, the majority still can only talk and read Chinese. It is the larger population that C wants to give it's side of the story too. As foreigners here it is hard to sometimes realise and accept this. But it is not our country.
The system here is not going to collapse anytime soon. It would be worldwide chaos if it did. The consequences of it, are to far reaching to even think about. Just take a look in the shops the next time you are there and see where stuff comes from, and not just the plastic and the electronics. I was in Ottawa last summer and found a packed of frozen corn from C. Yes a packet of corn, which can be grown locally, was farmed in C, harvested, frozen, trucked, shipped across the pacific, trucked, and then stacked on a supermarket shelf, all the way from C
Yes people deserve the right to have a say, yes people deserve the right to be different. But if you want the people in C to have a true say, as you see it, then you will also have a billion people wanting everything else that comes with it too and C could not cope with that, overnight.
C is changing, but it seems to be doing it, in its own way. in a controlled way, it may not be what the west thinks is right, but the majority of people in C think it is.
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Permalink Reply by ISBangkok -
This is a very well researched article, and an easy enjoyable read. As a student its so hard to imagine not being able to use Google as a go-to search engine for all my school work, its really something to think about. -Katie
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Permalink Reply by ISBangkok
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Honestly, I believe that people everywhere should have the right to access all the information they need freely. I don't fully understand China's censoring issues or regulations, but I don't think that censoring information from the outside world will help international relations between China and other countries. Google shouldn't pull out of China just because of an uncertain and unclear issue since Google is one of the most used search engine in the world. This will cause problems and disturbances. I also think that the Government has no right to hack of have access freely to peoples' private emails. I find it a violation of privacy. This is truly a controversial issue.
-Christian Fam
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