Google booted from China's number two carrier China's second largest wireless carrier - China Unicom - has said it will remove Google's search service from the Android phones it developed in tandem with the web giant, citing the company's decision to reroute Google.cn to uncensored servers in Hong Kong. “We are willing to work with any company that abides by Chinese law …
I find this funny. If we replace China with USA and then replace Google with some chinese company you end up reading a everyday normal story of democracy and the law fighting the oppresors.
Now as its a Chinese company are we to read this any different or like me you see a certain sort of Karma going on here.
What next - public Chinese outrage at the treatment of G20 protestors by the authorities; Have to wonder whats next.
Is this democracy or democracy without the red tape? Either way from a business perspective for a telco based company that has to operate under certain restrictions and laws within a country then there doing not only the right thing but the only thing they can do or risk having there operating license pulled. As would say a telco in the UK installing a hard core pedo porn search engine as default on all there phones (sorry bout only real comparision I can think of with not much sleep). Still, given the way the internet is by design and the variations in country laws - how long will it be until every country has its own firewall if only under the guise of policing there borders from international attacks.
Still, pretty dam funny I find.
You're comparing free speech to child abuse?
As much as I'm no great fan of the USA, and the UK isn't perfect either, but the people there at least have the right to, say, criticise the government. Can you imagine someone like Noam Chomsky being allowed his freedom in China, let alone holding academic positions and publishing books?
People really should look at this from an impartial position. Yes, we may morally object to the imformation restrictions China imposes, but as a sixth of the global population, they can decide that on their own. We cannot determine this for this, and therefore global companies should learn to accept global rules, rather than just whining about it, threatening to withdraw from the country they're being allowed to trade in. China could have just completely banned any company working with Google, which they haven't done, it's only Google who have thrown the toys out of the pram here. If only people would see that....
You are assuming that the Chinese 'people' can make a concious decision here - are you sure they can? Can they vote out the people making these decisions? Can they read unbiased news and not be subject to propaganda?
When the 'people' speak and not the 'government' - then you can talk about the people's will.
Oh yeah, just let 'em shoot protesters against corruption, massively suppress media and other kinds of speech and occupy other nations - IT'S THEIR CULTURE, IT'S A VALID POINT OF VIEW. Bugger off... The point is that a sixth of the world can't decide for themselves, they have a small elite desperate to remain in power and willing to commit all kinds of atrocities to get their way. Their POV can never be valid in my book. They're bullies and should be treated as such.
"Yes, we may morally object to the imformation restrictions China imposes, but as a sixth of the global population, they can decide that on their own."
OK, so let's have every Chinese person ballotted in a referendum, and let the government of the PRC abide by the results of that referendum without recourse to vague witterings about 'subversion of state power', or its usual methods of imprisoning and/or torturing those who disagree with its increasingly ridiculous pronouncements.
The way things are currently you'd get more honesty and truth out of the Vatican than out of the CPC and PLA combined.
They were admitted to the World Trade Organisation under certain conditions, one of these being to allow free trade, which clearly they aren't. Neither are they being transparent, which is another condition.
If they don't intend to abide by those conditions, they should forfeit their membership.
Why do they need to , bearing in mind how much the rest of the world now relies on them as the worlds manufacturer.
If China withdrew from the WTO, who exactly would boycott trade with them? It's a fine idea as long as you don't want computers, TV's, other electronic devices, plasticware, knives and forks, kids toys, tee shirts and jeans... and even a place to send all your plastic waste to be re-used rather than dumped in landfill.
I could go on.
Next time you buy something non-food, pretty much anything, have a look at where it was made. Just think how you would like to wait a year to get non-Chinese production scaled up, and how you would embrace paying three times as much for it. And that's not to mention the billions of dollars that China has invested from it's sovereign wealth fund propping up UK and US companies.
No, China is not afraid of the WTO. We should be afraid of them leveraging their dominant manufacturing position on us. Still, we only have ourselves to blame for letting our manufacturing sector to become so niche.
I don't like the human rights issues either, but if you examine the United Nations Charter, you will find that not even this allows any country to interfere with another sovereign nation (Article 2, Paragraph 7 apparently). Mind you, this appears to be something that the US and UK governments have forgotten over the years.
The other concern I have is why so many people think that the western democratic system is the only one worth merit? It should be quite obvious from Afghanistan and Iraq that it does not fit the whole world's moral and ethical systems. We (in the west) are just being moral snobs. I don't think that the Chinese system is currently fair, but that does not mean that we immediately have to schedule a western style election for China. The Chinese representational system, if it were implemented correctly could work, as long as the people at the top loose their desire to stay in power (hmmmm, probably not going to happen).
Anyway, enough of this Friday Afternoon politics, I need a pint!
... that the execs of these companies must be getting at the moment.
A rock and a hard place spring to mind.... I would imagine the call goes something like this:-
"Slag off Google or you're going on an extended holiday to a labour camp, and your kids can go too".
Google cannot take on the Chinese government; in China Google is a small force by comparison. Google are throwing a tamtrum because they are not getting their way and because the censorship gets in the way of ad revenue. Well boo hoo; there is plenty of competition that will be ready to step in and work with the local regulations. A local Chinese search engine could take over and fill the gap easily *and* take all the add revenue that would otherwise have gone to Google.
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