You have to admire Google

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To remove themselves from China, on a point of principle, is a rare and commendable act on their part. I doubt that Microsoft will be so honourable.

China angry at Google move to Hong Kong (Source)


China has criticised Google's decision to stop censoring its China-based search engine, calling the move "totally wrong" and accusing the company of violating promises.

More than two months after it threatened to shut down Google.cn if it had to continue policing the site, the company made the shift early on Tuesday.

Visitors to Google.cn are automatically redirected to the Chinese-language service based in Hong Kong, where Google is not required to censor searches.

The State Council Information Office, which oversees the internet said: "Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks."

"This is totally wrong. We're uncompromisingly opposed to the politicisation of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conducts."

Google's Hong Kong page heralded the shift, with the words "Welcome to Google Search in China's new home."

The move, in effect, shifts the responsibility for censoring from Google to the communist government, which operates an extensive monitoring and filtering system to block content, deemed unacceptable. Users in China were unable to retrieve searches on sensitive topics.

The Chinese government could retaliate by blocking access to Google's services, much as it has completely shut off YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. China has an estimated 350 million Internet users.

[Minister of Truth]

Good for Google. Looks like we get another thread about how EVIL Microsoft is...

[SmarterthanYou]

is china going to invade google now?

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Good for Google. Looks like we get another thread about how EVIL Microsoft is...

Their actions speak for themselves, I haven't seen any announcement that MS will follow suit.

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is china going to invade google now?

I wonder what Yellow Peril has to say about it?

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Good for Google. Looks like we get another thread about how EVIL Microsoft is...

Even the old Walrus John Bolton agrees with me.


By JOHN BOLTON

Google's decision to stop censoring searches on its China-based servers, rerouting search requests instead to its uncensored Hong Kong facilities, is historic. Google has shown itself unwilling simply to be on the receiving end of whatever Beijing dishes out—and highlighted the growing importance of Hong Kong and Taiwan in shaping the decisions that foreign businesses in China must make.


When an enterprise of Google's global dimensions and visibility reverses course in China and is no longer a passive, compliant subject of government diktats, it sends a message to enterprises world-wide: You can do the same. Submissive participation in the mainland Chinese market is neither inevitable nor unavoidable. Do not fear to assert your interests, and those of your present and potential Chinese customers.


For the most part, foreign companies doing business in mainland China previously assumed that their risks lay on the side of not complying with Beijing's orders, however burdensome or threatening to profits or property interests, physical or intellectual. Leaving the Chinese market was unthinkable, and defying or contesting Beijing's directions just as unthinkable.






Bloomberg News Outside the Hong Kong Exchange


Google's decision to stop censoring searches on its China-based servers, rerouting search requests instead to its uncensored Hong Kong facilities, is historic. Google has shown itself unwilling simply to be on the receiving end of whatever Beijing dishes out—and highlighted the growing importance of Hong Kong and Taiwan in shaping the decisions that foreign businesses in China must make.


When an enterprise of Google's global dimensions and visibility reverses course in China and is no longer a passive, compliant subject of government diktats, it sends a message to enterprises world-wide: You can do the same. Submissive participation in the mainland Chinese market is neither inevitable nor unavoidable. Do not fear to assert your interests, and those of your present and potential Chinese customers.
For the most part, foreign companies doing business in mainland China previously assumed that their risks lay on the side of not complying with Beijing's orders, however burdensome or threatening to profits or property interests, physical or intellectual. Leaving the Chinese market was unthinkable, and defying or contesting Beijing's directions just as unthinkable.





Of course, as Google could envision, bucking this conventional wisdom is hardly risk free. Google may be mistaken about its own commercial interests and have to climb down in the near future—Chinese authorities are already filtering results from Google's Hong Kong search engine for mainland users. Beijing's rapid and angry response shows it fully understands the dimensions of this clash, and it may yet win, forcing Google back into censoring searches, or pushing it entirely from the mainland for being uppity.


The company announced starkly that "the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement." That position shows how aggressively Beijing's current leadership will act to control domestic information flows, and foreign businesses generally.
But the mere fact that the Google nail remains upright, despite Beijing's omnipresent hammer, is telling. And if Google succeeds, we cannot even begin to imagine the commercial implications for foreign trade and investment with China. A Google victory is also a victory for China's citizens, a surrogate win for those who value individual liberty and free markets in goods and ideas.


Google's response spotlights the distinctive role that mainland China's more free cousins, Hong Kong and Taiwan, may play in shaping business in China in the future. Because Hong Kong still retains a strong attachment to a consistent, fairly applied rule of law, in an economy many now consider freer than that of the United States, Google correctly saw it as a refuge to which it could repair.


Hong Kong's physical reality, its legal protections and lack of corruption, and its potential to be a truly open society are powerful advantages for foreign businesses. Similarly, Taiwan's appeal as a base cannot be dismissed either, especially as economic relations across the Taiwan Strait grow. More closely integrating the two cross-Strait economies will only increase Taiwan's attractiveness to foreign investors and traders.
But Hong Kong's longer term future is still up in the air: Technically it will be fully integrated into China after 2047, and there are already signs of interference from Beijing in the Special Administrative Region. A lot rides on how its role in the current crisis plays out. Many Hong Kong trends are deeply disturbing: increasing Beijing efforts to interfere in internal affairs; repeated postponements of steps toward fuller representative government; and worries about Beijing tainting Hong Kong's judiciary by appointing judges who will be responsive to China rather than independent. On the other hand, the strength of support among Hong Kong's younger citizens for preserving Hong Kong's special status shows that the passage of time is not ineluctably on Beijing's side.


Google's decision should also tell the U.S. government something about how to advocate its interests with China. The Google controversy coincided with cyber attacks against over 200 American companies, believed by U.S. authorities to have been launched by the People's Liberation Army. China's unchallenged behavior shows why we should not be optimistic that romancing Beijing will produce "crippling" sanctions against Iran's nuclear weapons program any time soon. Instead, the Obama administration should emulate Google's approach in official dealings, and support U.S. businesses in situations similar to Google so they do not have to act alone.
Announcing China's 1949 founding, Mao Zedong said, "The Chinese people have stood up!" Now, Google has stood up, and the game is on between Mao's heirs and the Internet generation.


Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

[Minister of Truth]

Yes, I doubt that any Americans disagree with you on this subject. Bolton didn't turn around and trash Microsoft, though... (I skimmed the article, so it could have been in there somewhere)

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Yes, I doubt that any Americans disagree with you on this subject. Bolton didn't turn around and trash Microsoft, though... (I skimmed the article, so it could have been in there somewhere)

It's the elephant in the room!!

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[I][Submissive participation in the mainland Chinese market is neither inevitable nor unavoidable.

No kidding.

Fuck china.

It's sad it took a private corporation to take a stand our government should have taken.


You neocon globalists who say doing anything to stop china from raping the world is impossible need to choke on your defeated attitude.