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Google Shows Moxie in Dealing with China

By Rick Ackerman Posted on January 15, 2010, 3:22 am EST Last Updated January 15, 2010, 3:23 am EST

Google is showing some spine in standing up to China, although, to hear the  Chinese tell it, a home-grown company was already beating the Mountain View, CA-based search-engine firm at its own game in China. We wish Google well, since the Chinese have been playing hardball lately with the kind of troublemakers who value human rights more than, not merely business, but their own lives. Over the protests of the U.S. and the rest of the free world, China made a show of sentencing dissident writer Liu Xiaobo to 11 years of hard labor. We wouldn’t put it past them to plot murder against nettlesome Google developers working in China, since a show trial could easily backfire. That’s how China’s Russian comrades have silenced those who spread supposedly subversive ideas. They don’t even go to the trouble of making it look like the victim was hit by a bus.

Google-china2

Will the Chinese prove to be even worse than the Russians in the human rights category? We won’t know until after they’ve delivered the coup de grace to the U.S. in business and finance. When they no longer have to play ball with us, that’s when we’ll find out what they’re really made of.

Denials, Always

Google’s doubts about remaining in China were prompted by a sophisticated hacker attack in  mid-December that could only have been orchestrated by the government. Hackers broke into the G-mail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists, drawing the interest of U.S. intelligence agencies.  In the past, the Chinese have denied any responsibility for such attacks against foreign entities. At press time, however, no Chinese spokesman had surfaced to repeat this lie. But Google appears serious about withdrawing its business from China. “We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China,” said the company’s chief legal officer, David Drummond. Since China is not going to give an inch on censorship, it would appear that Google is committed to exiting.

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  • Dusty January 19, 2010, 9:08 am

    Google shows moxie?

    Hardly. According to the article at http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=3007&tag=nl.e101, Google had automated the step of handing over private information to American law officials. This is what the Chinese gov’t had cracked into.

    Why on earth would Google automate this process if they are so concerned about turning over private information of their users, whether it is in China or the U.S.? This gives the impression Google has been sending reams of private user data to American officials all along. This smells of hypocrisy.

    Dusty

  • Chris T. January 18, 2010, 6:03 pm

    Rick,

    “Regarding Holocaust deniers, I don’t understand the analogy to Scipio. Whether or not you agree with him, Scipio’s arguments are not based wholly on lies, as are those of Holocaust deniers”

    The analogy was not to the truthfulness or lack thereof of the argument, but rather it was to use something we genereally consider unacceptable.
    Another one would be (and I mention it at the end) an argument in favor of segregation or condoning slavery.

    I consider those unacceptable, as I do the Scipio-type argument, thus the analogy to show what I feel doesn’t belong here.
    Having just read your reply, we obviously disagree on that point, fair enough.

    I still don’t buy the underlying assumptions, especiallythe notion that “The Islamists have made it shockingly clear that this is their goal for infidels”

    If we are really afraid of an islamisation of our culture and way of life, then we in the West (this includes Europe as well) should perhaps stop bringing that whole culture into our midst, and we should, rather than decrying them, applaud the Swiss referendum on Minarets. But that would be too “radical”, alas.

    Some examples:
    In Britain, police on raids involving a muslim household, must first knock to ensure that they do not barge in on unveiled (or even less dressed) women, they must remove their shoes, and put booties on their dogs.
    Of course no such deference is required, when the common, Christian Briton is being raided.
    Another ex: Judges in Britain and Germany have gone so far as to give consideration to Muslim sharia “values” in deciding/sentencing men for beating/mistreating their wives.

    My radical solution for that, much greater, problem, would not be to hope for a non-forthcoming “reform” of their religion, or to hope for them to become as non-religious/atheistic as the host population, but to not admt them in the first place, a mistake started over40 years ago in Europe. But again, too radical…

    &&&&&&

    The Islamization of Western culture is an insidious threat, I agree, but attempting to deal with it via refrerenda on minarets falls far short of addressing the much greater danger posed by Islamists already at war with the non-Muslim world. Assuming their desire to kill or convert each and every infidel has grown, rather than diminished, since 9/11, this problem is much more pressing than, for one, the spread of sharia in Europe. When the Iranian mullahs finally get their bomb, there will be no arguing that Scipio’s “remedy” was too extreme.

    RA

  • TahoeBilly January 17, 2010, 4:09 am

    Rick,

    You seem to have the balls to discuss the soon to be massive Haitian refugee crisis about to unfold. And it’s obvious 500,000 people are going to need to leave Haiti, and fast!

    You like connecting dots, so let me put forth mine! This massive crisis is going to mean taking lots of people to foreign shores, especially since we truly have no money to help rebuild, when we are already “rebuilding” half of the Middle East. I say this is where we should be rebuilding, not phony oil wars, but this massive crisis in our “own” backyard.

    Care to discuss?

    TB

    &&&&&

    Some problems have no solutions, Billy, and this may be one of them. But I agree, waves of Haitians are about to wash up on U.S. shores, Florida first. RA

  • Cameroni January 16, 2010, 1:41 am

    Good for Google.

    The sooner the current Chinese regime shows everyone it’s true colors the sooner we can get the rose colored glasses off and start treating them as the very significant competitor that they really are. Right now, the Chinese are just behaving as a somewhat benign opportunistic global business behemoth. When the going gets tough though the fangs will come out and that day may be coming sooner than we wish.

  • Chris T. January 16, 2010, 12:51 am

    corrrection to:
    ” the “terrorist” population of Riyadh is surely less than 99.9%.”

    Of course that should have said:
    ” the “terrorist” population of Riyadh is surely less than 0.1%.”

    My apologies.

  • gary leibowitz January 15, 2010, 10:16 pm

    Our country experienced the same abuses a century ago, and to some extent still do. It can only be solved internally. If/when the Chinese people stand up to these atrocities it will be business as usual. It is not the political structure that has to change but the people under that structure that have to rise above apathy and complacency.

    Change always starts from within.

  • Chris T. January 15, 2010, 9:51 pm

    Rick,

    Because you reference human rights in your comments above in a fashion which (to me at least) implies that you think this a valid concept and a proper principle on its own, I want to contrast that with your reference your link to Alex Scipio’s blog.

    While it is true that one can feature links to blogs of interest without necessarily agreeing with them, just to see what other opinions are out there, such a highlighting always carries with it a somewhat implicit endorsement, or at least “other opinions are valid while not mine” approach.

    As an example, let’s assume instead of addressing “terror” by such a reference and link, you instead had addressed history and then pointed to a “fascinating blog” about Aushwitz and the claimed absence of gas-chambers there (what we commonly call holocaust denial) — what should and would the readers’ inference be of that?

    When Scipio talks of:
    “No valid reason exists not to use nuclear weapons on our enemies…”,
    he is obviously of a difference sphere.
    The first and foremost is respect to the Chirstian and other moral values this country was founded on. If he cares not for any of those, then for the respect for human rights and dignity we have been professing for generations.
    Those principles should outweigh anything of expedience he deals with. If not, then he is just praising hypocrisy and is part of the root cause of the “terror” he is screaming against.

    For starters, the basic assumptions that someone like Scipio apparently believes in (he comes off just like a typical neo-con like Hannity for ex.), things such as the concept of “Islamic fascism” , or the NEED to kill Imperial Japan, are questionable.
    Fascism as a policy/system has nothing to do with what is described today as “Islamic Fascism”, the term was merely chosen, because we all know that fascism is bad, and thus attaching “fascism” shows the badness. In fact, it is people like Scipio who are fascists when properly subsumed. Same for a need to kill Imperial Japan. They did then what we are doing now, using force to gain economic advantage. If we are not wrong now, they were not then.
    UNLESS one believes that anything WE DO is good (because we are good people), Such a highly subjective perspective is typical of the Scipio’s of this world.

    However, even if one has not problem with accepting those basic assumptions, the “terrorist” population of Riyadh is surely less than 99.9%.
    American values have not, and should not countenance the killing of 100s of 1000s of INNOCENT lives just in hopes of “geting” a handful of targeted group.

    Again, to neocons like Scipio, that is just collateral damage of expendables, but to those who believe in the values of human rights and dignity, as Americans profess to and hopefully actually do, that is completely unacceptable.

    As a matter of fact, it has been demonstrated by enough of those in the know, if not in the mainstream media, that it is the wanton and hypcritical attitude of the Scipios that is at the root of the actions which he decries.

    Because you are also one who is on the side of human rights, the Scipio link and reference should have no place here as just being of interest, like one also does not want to see a link to holocaust denial or pro-segregation blogs as being interesting.

    &&&&&&

    Chris:

    Scipio says it is immoral to spill American blood in a war on terror that we cannot win because: 1) our tactics and strategy are chaotic; and, 2) we lack the will to prevail. I agree. He goes on to justifiy all-out war against the jihadists because the consequence of defeat would be enslavement or death. The Islamists have made it shockingly clear that this is their goal for infidels, much as Hitler made clear in “Mein Kampf” goals of world dominance and genocide that the non-Aryan world rightly decided it could not live with.

    Concerning the non-jihadi “innocents” of Riyadh and the Muslim world, it is debatable whether they are complicitous, but the Western world is understandably anxious about whether their passivity may be nurturing a cult of death that, armed with a few nukes, could end civilization. Under the circumstances, as Scipio points out, we cannot afford to put the “rights” of our enemy — even the right to live — before our own survival.

    Regarding Holocaust deniers, I don’t understand the analogy to Scipio. Whether or not you agree with him, Scipio’s arguments are not based wholly on lies, as are those of Holocaust deniers.

    RA

  • DonF January 15, 2010, 9:38 pm

    This is so important, I must pass on at this point.

    When does a country NOT get Most Favored Nation status?

    http://www.siliconv.com/archive/chinamfn.html

  • DonF January 15, 2010, 8:41 pm

    Children! Children! Of course I feel as sorry for Google as you guys do. But, I think we’re losing sight of the bigger picture here. The one percent at the top of our economic pyramid has single-handedly stolen our ability to keep China in check. China just happened to be there. So, enough already with the shortsighted China-bashing! It’s just one of the thousands of distractions that the one percent at the top wants us to engage in, while they are robbing us blind. Human rights my A$$ ! Up your Patriot ACT! Just look at the enormous pyramid of lies stacked on top of the 911 lie! Pull your heads out and back into the sunshine!

    johnjay China has not sucked this country dry. They had NOTHING to do with it. The one percent at the top did it, totally and completely. The one percent at the top wrote and enforced the treaties, such as NAFTA, that gave up our farms and factories and gave Most Favored Nation status to the lowest labor bidders and the highest profit!

    China also has one percent at it’s top. Whether that one percent at the top, calls itself communist or republican or democrat or socialist or liberal makes not a dime’s bit of difference. Because they are neither! They are the ruling class of the Golden Rule. He who has the gold (and the guns) rules. PERIOD!

    We, the other 99% of Americans, are well on the road to Third World status. Shall we stand and fight the one percent at the top for our former way of life! Or shall we quibble over which red herring is the prettiest or worst?

  • Rich January 15, 2010, 8:41 pm

    Aloha All
    Midnight oasis surprise in the markets.
    Re making cents and sense of what’s happening in the markets, note big banks hardest hit on the news Greek interest rates soaring because their budget deficit is 12.7% of their GDP, FOUR times the European Union limit. Funny how American mass media neglect mentioning the US budget deficit is 10% of the GDP and growing. Dollar up 1% versus Euro, Gold down over 1%. We look forward to Big4 reports this weekend.
    Regards*Rich

  • CC January 15, 2010, 7:00 pm

    I like this one from Rick:

    “Will the Chinese prove to be even worse than the Russians in the human rights category?

    Factually and anecdotally, evidence has it that during Mao’s rule, an estimated 50M+ human beings lost their lives as part of the Great Leap Forward. I don’t think they have a thing to prove in that regard.

    Say, does anybody here remember:

    – Most favored Nation status?
    – Bernard Schwartz (Loral systems; missile guidance technology leaders)
    – Johnny Chung
    – John Huang
    – Wen Ho Lee (W-88 missile technology/rocket booster technology/Los Alamos)
    – The Lincoln Bedroom
    – The 1990’s, leading right into the 2000’s

    Rick’s is a smart audience so I won’t go into detail regarding the above names, places, events. Shifting of world power doesn’t happen in a single day, year or decade. It takes a good generation – or two of:

    – Lying
    – Stealing
    – Corrupting
    – Co-opting
    – Bribery
    – ‘Donations’
    – Spying
    – ‘Gifts’
    – Whores
    – More…?

    Google?

    Google will do what it does, when it wants to (rub your index/forefinger/thumb together).

    If it means setting up shop (at much protestation from Real human rights groups here in the U.S. and abroad), to further the goal of rubbing one’s index/forefinger/thumb together, that so shall it be. Regarding Google as well, it should come as no surprise to astute readers of this forum and others, that the CEO of Google has ideologies (which translate directly into funding and support) which are aligned closely with those currently residing in the Out-House, as it was as well in the late 1990’s.

    It would be great for them to depart that area of the world (I think the Chinese have um, ‘ripped-off’ enough of our technology from weak-willed and easily manipulated business and political ‘leaders’) to enable themselves to perform quite well in the area of technology and its attendant military applications, thank you very much…

  • Rich January 15, 2010, 6:56 pm

    While USA may have more naval firepower, China has a lot of American Engineering and IT graduates for hardware and cyberwarfare, Neutron ICBMs courtesy of Wen Ho Lee, Boeing, Hughes, Loral, Lockheed Martin et al. Plus China controls most ports including ours. Recall that was a Biblical prophecy and led to war with Japan, controlling the gates of enemies.
    Meanwhile, Mrs Market seems to have collapsed on perhaps unsustainable good INTC and JPM news…

  • Steve January 15, 2010, 6:44 pm

    History is always an interesting thing. It is said that he who controls history controls the future. Yet, somehow a pretty clear picture of the past appears in the present through dissent writtings in the present. The ‘history’ of the United States Government is not pretty. The U.S. has broken every Treaty ever made with the Indians. The U.S. government engaged in wholesale human rights abuses by destroying the Bison with intent to starve a people into submission (there is worse use of the Smallpox, and Whiskey). And then under the Hero Custer WE began to slaughter the old, the women, and the children who were unarmed. When Big Foot was surrendering his band of unarmed Indians they were slaughtered and frozen solid in history. At Sand Creek “Black Kettle Band Cheyenne” the Colorado Volunteers took off their clean uniforms and then went about slaughtering the women and chilren after they surrendered. When done these fine men from Colorado put on their clean coats and cut the sexual organs from the women and draped their hats with the sexual trophies. So much for an honor of amercian butchery. In the 1840’s the money in New York went about taking western lands that could not lawfully be taken, ending with the overthrow of the Lawful Government of Hawaii by mercenaries while the U.S. Marines stood by in American Ships. Oh ! The congress officially apologized on the 100 year aniversary in 1998, but; the land has not been returned to its people. The U.S. did not bomb military targets in Japan with nucs, they chose civilian targets, just like the fire bombings in Germany. Where is the Law – Congressional Declaration of War – to be anywhere with imperial force today ? There has not been a Lawful aggression since 1941. Lets look at that Lawful aggression in 1941. Prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the U.S. blocked “oil”, and “steel” from arriving in Japan. Who really started the “New Deal” theory that has now become Nash’s Non Co-operative Game Theory, as the exclusive theory of the U.S. Congress to deny the Unalienable Rights of Man via economic abuses. How clear can this be ? Article I, sec. 10, cls. 1 of the Constitution is quoted “No State shall . . .make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” Does the congresss honor the Constitution ? Look at the Capitalization, but; I digress as this is about human rights and China. If a Man, or an entire Indian Culture does not bend and submit to the will of democracy and New Deal tyranny, that man’s and the culture’s Rights will be crushed economically, and if that does not work the military power of the U.S., maybe via ‘state agency’, will rain down taking blood for the simple act of saying I have an Unalienable Right as an allodialist. One is only free of abuse as long as one toes the NEW DEAL party line. History is not kind to the U.S. Government, nor will history be kind in reporting the criminal abuses of democracy as a tyranny destroying a Free Republic in the present. Toeing the Line in China brings success. Toeing the line in the U.S. brings successes. Stand up for the Rights of an Individual Sovereign in either state and one will be crushed. Right is always the definition of the Power, which is nearly always opposed to the Individual Rights of Man. Article I, sec. 10, cls. 1, clearly establishes that the banks and congress are criminal enterprises which have stripped the Citizen of Freedom. Try standing up against the Banks in a Court and I guarantee the complainer will be CRUSHED. China ? Maybe the U.S. should look at its own abuses of Cultures and Peoples starting with the American Indians before we make complaint about others lest we be Hypocritical.

    THE TRUTH IS WHAT ONE FINDS NOT NECESSARILY WHAT ONE WANTS TO KNOW

  • mario cavolo January 15, 2010, 4:37 pm

    “…Or pollute their environment without concern for the health of it’s citizens?”

    I’m amazed by the misguided patriotic China-bashing here – come on George, China’s commitment to “green” / alternative energy is eons beyond anything anywhere else on the planet. The past 10 years horrible horrible “commie” government has risen well over 200,000,000 million HUMAN BEINGS out of poverty into comfortable middle class status, UNPRECEDENTED in the history of mankind by any measure.

    Now lest anyone might think I am a pro-China kinda guy, I am NOT. The Google thing is EASY to understand if you understand the background of the past year of business development in China. The European Commission issued a scathing report on the decline in ease of doing business in China, using the Olympics and next, the recent National Day holiday in October, and next the Shanghai World Expo 2010 as the public excuses, they are, in my opinion, happily kicking our arses out. They’ve gotten our FDI, they’ve gotten our knowledge, now, as understood and planned by all parties, they are localizing management.

    You actually think their “censorship” and other restrictive policies are only political? They block Facebook so that the Chinese version of Facebook (www.kaixin.com) flourishes domestically! Google out, then the Chinese search engine companies like Baidu flourish!!! They got our money, they got our know-how, now they subtlely create the circumstances for us to go back home… Evil? Commie? Sneaky?…Nope, we got our side out of the deal too. Cheers, Mario

  • johnjay January 15, 2010, 4:03 pm

    I think China is about at the point where they can let their currency appreciate.
    They have sucked this country dry of industry, currency, and technology, with the help of our elected officials. If we turn into the Weimar Republic, they are ready to take over as the world’s new super power. We are just about irrelevant. Without someone to buy all our debt, we will not be able to afford our military, which is all that is backing our currency.
    The question is, when our collapse begins, will the military go MacArthur on China to save their jobs, pensions, and positions of power? Do we go under with a bang or a whimper?
    Stay tuned!

  • coolsaint January 15, 2010, 4:00 pm

    If anyone thinks the “sub=basement” of the US government isn’t doing the same thing to americans ………….

  • Benjamin January 15, 2010, 3:08 pm

    I’ve been keeping up on other news, so I missed this one. But oh, I’m just lovin’ this! Ever since there was a China to speak of (the great bubble, of course, not the country) so many have been quick to defend it from its own inhumane government! They loved how the money just spilled into their pockets with an obscene ease. But now at least one company is standing up for what is right.

    Is that the sound of the first domino I hear? We shall see. For now…

    I would like to use this opportunity to draw peoples’ attention to another injustice (among the many) in the world that are going on. This one is from the land down under…

    http://agmates.ning.com/group/peterspencerhungerstrike

    The Gist: Private property rights and the rules concerning compensation are the foundation of Western culture, and the “good” PM is ignoring the plight he’s caused these farmers from abandoning those principles. On top of that, he has the audacity to call this the “intimidation of one man” and that he won’t let this change the policy. Judging by all the enraged farmers, though, I’d say the PM is gearing up to lose his head in the future.

    I’m glad to report that Mr. Spencer has ended his strike, and plans to regain his strength so that he can more meaningfuly continue this battle.

    Give ’em hell, guys… Give ’em hell!

  • Peter Montgomery January 15, 2010, 2:46 pm

    Google is a scam

    This screaming about a communist country when Google censors its own searches

    as for its other offalings (not a misspelling)

    http://www.cringely.com/2010/01/google-2010-what-makes-the-muskrat-guard-his-musk/

  • FranSix January 15, 2010, 12:59 pm

    As for how Asia generally regards the communists, you get a real insight from a South Korean cell phone commercial that says it all:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cPb45tzgdQ

  • FranSix January 15, 2010, 12:54 pm

    Though China’s role in the Korean war has largely been forgotten, naked military aggression is not beyond its reach as it will prove in the near future. But the invasion of Iraq was as naked and violent a military aggression as you can get. The whole question of human rights has literally been flushed down the toilet years ago. Since the war on terror, rights have taken a back seat to “the ends justify the means.”

    A mass exodus of business from China as it occurred in Russia? Now THAT would be an interesting wrinkle.

    As far as geopolitics go, this Korean War series sets just about everything since that time into clear perspective, it should be watched, and watched several times over:

    (1/18) Korean War

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4hkUFriyFU

  • Senor Cuidado January 15, 2010, 11:00 am

    The 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony — covered by NBC — was a spooky wake up call for anyone who cared to question the conventional wisdom: Two General Electric Corp puppets spent the show trying to sugarcoat the spectacle of a Collectivist Nationalist Superstate flexing its muscles like it was 1938 all over again.

    Maybe the recent flood of Chinese cadmium into American family households will finally wake people up.

  • Spanky January 15, 2010, 10:28 am

    I think the US should look at its own human rights violations before it goes judging others.

    Ron Paul gets shunned by the media during his election
    Civilians get slaughtered by attacks on foreign soil
    The general public gets robbed by the banker class in reverse Robin Hood
    Money is stolen via the inflation tax

    The Chinese tell their people to buy gold, The americans lease and swap their people’s gold

    Give me a break

    &&&&&&

    Okay, I’ve looked. China is worse. Way worse. RA

  • George January 15, 2010, 7:39 am

    Isn’t China the ideal Corporate State – where those put in charge don’t have to deal with something as pesky as the electorate? Why have our corporate “leaders”, aided and abetted by politicians (where are you Hank Paulson?) and driven by the profits of Wall Street, sold the country to China?
    Could it be that communist leaders can trample on their working class? Or pollute their environment without concern for the health of it’s citizens?
    The Communist State is a corporation’s dream-land.

    &&&&&

    Not exactly a shareholders’ paradise, though. RA

  • mario cavolo January 15, 2010, 6:18 am

    Indeed, China is not going to give an inch on censorship. They have shown clearly that they will push farther than the West thinks is reasonable to protect their interests. Well, the U.S. can much be accused of that too.

    In China, the value line is drawn crystal clear; we will not tolerate anything we perceive as a threat to the stability of the community and the government. We won’t allow it to take root. The bad side of this is what happens to writers like Liu Xiao Bo. But the good side of that is admirable and makes the extreme of American “individual” freedom seem quite naive. In China, grandmas and grandkids can walk the streets of their neighborhoods; in China, gun-wielding gangbangers aren’t allowed to hangout together in groups on the street corner ruining life for everyone around them in the community. In America, the ACLU successfully blocked the installation of metal detectors in one of Chicago’s worst slum, gang-ridden neighborhoods because it violated “individual” rights. The community continues to live in fear. China would never tolerate such stupidity sacrificing the family and community in the name of the individual. Miranda has caused a lot of damage by do-good liberals who have taken things way too far. Cheers, Mario

  • Don January 15, 2010, 6:16 am

    I don’t understand; we can’t trade with Cuba because of hmmm, they are communist etc.,
    ah ha we can trade with the great human rights advacators China because we can make more money and so they censure their folk a little we will look the other way as long as they buy our Bennie dollars and send us junk, and we can send their Puerto Rico hi-tech weaponry. Way to go yomama, Timmy, Larry etc. Don’t get me wrong I am not a Bushfreak supporter, nor a Clinton thug.
    As it was told to my wife who grew up in China by her mother that my wife’s grandparents were welcomed by the communist party when they established their government around 1950 by her grandfather being executed with a bullet to the back of the head because he was an attorney and land owner(don’t want any intelligence around us), and grandmother being a nurse could work in a govt. hospital or meet the same fate. Grandmother did what you or I would do, she worked in the hospital.
    So the jist of my comments only a damn fool will cozy up to the commies and prayful Google has the courage and integrity to tell the Communist Chinese government to meet me in Moscow. The commie govt is not our friend; I’m not so sure our govt is our friend either. Have the prosperity you wish for doing the HP.
    Best to each and everyone,
    Don

  • TahoeBilly January 15, 2010, 4:45 am

    In a world where no one in business seems to stand for anything but profits, this has to come as a shock! Our technology companies really care about our privacy? You’d like to think so, but its hard to believe. How much sway does Homeland Security have with Facebook, say. Maybe it’s only when the bad guys hack like this, who knows. I Facebook, but I also fully assume everything I do is being watched or tracked, if they care too.

    TB

  • Martin Snell January 15, 2010, 4:43 am

    Kudos to Google.

    That said the Chinese are doing what they feel they need to do, and what the rest of the world is letting them get away with. Why there is not more pressure on the Chinese to stop “manipulating” its currency I have no idea.

    It reminds me of the movie “To Live” by Zhang Yi-Mou. A rich son goes to the casino every night to gamble. He loses often but the casino owner let’s him put the losses on a tab. His employees wonder what is going on as the unpaid losses grow. Then one night the casino owner says enough – “pay up”. Of course the only thing the gambler has is his family house/fortune (which is what the casino operator was after from the start). The father of the gambler dies as he is being moved form the home.

    Think of parallels to what China is doing to the US … until one day.

  • Daman Prakash January 15, 2010, 4:28 am

    China is emboldened as public opinion in US and West is greatly mesmerized by the news of economic progress. China will abuse human rights and always run counter propaganda. It is good to see Goggle stand up to that. Most businessmen world over are spineless. It is heartening that one company is setting new rules for business.

    I was personally aghast when US President recently visited China and declared China as super power in Asia. That was too much to offer and it will further increase their strength in throttling any criticism.

    Recently they arrested 30 reputed diamond traders from India and charged them with smuggling. Chinese see Indian leadership in diamond trade as a great threat.

    Unless public opinion stand up to China, nothing is going to happen. US and West discourage any product imported from a source where child labor is involved. Why not put in some laws for human rights abuse and ban importing products from those countries?

    US and West need to realize their buying power and should be protective of human rights. Unless you start hitting China below belt, they will not listen. They have played havoc with monetary system, refused to appreciate yuan, no free trade is discernible there. Dragon need to be chained and you don’t require another French revolution for that. In modern world, economics hit a country harder than anything else. China should be made to realize that. A good start can be made when every consumer in free country decides to buy 10% lesser Chinese goods and pay something more for home products or imported from countries wherein human rights are valued.

    In every quality certificate on any product for sale in free world , let there be mandatory human right sticker. I am sure consumer will respond.


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