Google Threatens to Pull Out of China

I’m a day late on this one, but I wanted to weigh in.  After a cyberattack that looks like it was intended to hack the gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents, Google has threatened to pull its operations from China.  See the Times story here.  That’s right, no more dealing with Chinese censorship, no more dealing with the world’s slowest web, no more programming to create filters to sway the politics of the world’s most populous country.

I’m with Google on this one. I remember talking to a Japanese friend who said she knew nothing about Japan’s atrocities before leaving the country and meeting Australian victims of Japanese war aggression.  She wondered how her government could lie to her for all those years. She almost felt it was a betrayal.

I don’t know how this is going to turn out, but Google should pull out.  Censoring, filtering, and misleading according to the Chinese government’s wishes…just doesn’t meld with their “Do no evil” mission.  Google doesn’t need their money, and the company can make a powerful statement by refusing to cooperate with the Chinese government’s manipulation of information.  I would hope that Chinese people would someday question the world and wonder why they don’t have access to the same information that everyone else does, but who knows what is going to happen.  Google almost certainly provides better international search than Baidu, but will the Chinese people ever know what they’re missing if they can’t access Google to begin with?  Will it have any effect on Chinese students trying to use the internet to learn about the outside world?

It’s tough too because of Tiananmen’s bloody legacy against those who would speak out for the people.  Although…if the Chinese don’t know about Tiananmen, perhaps they would be more willing to stand up again.  Hopefully the rest of the world can better pressure China to act responsibly this time.  When it happens.  If it happens.