America awakes to the China reality
http://stanfordreview.org/
Courtesy of the ever-insightful James Fallows, here is one of several money quotes from Clinton’s ‘Internet Freedom’ speech:
“On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does.”
Just in case anyone was in any doubt, China under CCP leadership are most definitely on the wrong side of this struggle for freedom, although Jackie Chan might disagree.
The Obama administration reached out to China on a range of issues – internet freedom among them – in an effort to shape a relationship of 21st century cooperation and engagement. This was apparently interpreted by Beijing as a sign of American weakness. As a consequence, the Chinese government have begun to strut with a troubling degree of arrogance in global affairs, and increased repression at home.
Most analysts predicted a bumpy immediate future for Sino-US ties. It might be bumpier than expected, especially if Beijing doesn’t learn to recognise a genuine American president when they meet one.
For now, a very one-sided honeymoon is over and the gloves are off.
So what next?
I would predict the usual nationalism-invoking rhetoric and belligerent posturing from Beijing, and a firmer stance from the Obama administration towards China that doesn’t include side-stepping a cordial invitation extended to the Dalai Lama.
Update
A very CCP response: ‘US guilty of internet imperialism’
It seems the Chinese government are really fine-tuning their sense of irony.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:47 am
“Just in case anyone was in any doubt, China under CCP leadership are most definitely on the wrong side of this struggle for freedom, although Jackie Chan might disagree.”
It is worng to suggest there is no freedom in China. For sure, there is some freedom curtailed not to the dislike of many justifiably or not. But one must not lose sight that the majority of China’s 1.3b people have freedom to be educated, adequately fed, basic heatlth care, pursue careers of their choice and ability, most of freedom of speech. Of course, there are instances where crtical freedom of speech was unjustly denied and people who protest this shouldbe commended. It is helpful for people to bear in mind the freedoms that are being enjoyed now while protest over freedoms that were denied such that the protests were measured.
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:46 am
You guys may benefit from more balance
viewpoints in this post in wsj real time report
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/01/15/clearing-up-confusion-on-google-and-china/tab/comments/
I like this comment by tanner
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Someone should tell Google’s executives to take China 101 course. They are too naïve that the Chinese government will buckle under Google’s pressure to exit Chinese market.
The primary Chinese Government’s policy is the social stability, economic development to get rid of the 800 million people from poverty by way of urbanized 500 million Chinese from the rural area within 20 years, developing and integrating their military strength to deter invader as well as to regain Taiwan to the motherland if necessary by force.
Social stability is the numero uno priority in the mind of the Chinese leadership. With numerous undereducated populations, the country cannot effort the chaotic situation just like what had happened in Iran last year because of twitter and facebook. Censorship is a necessary evil that cannot be compromised at this point of time, when the time come lifting the censorship has become a natural course. It can only happen when the living standard of the average Chinese is up to the level of the developed nations.
Google made a lot of noise recently due to the recent attack on their computer accusing prying the anti-government activists’ account. Let’s look at some of the facts.
Fact No. 1. Despite of the large investment, Google only holds around 30% of the search engine market share in China while the late comer Baidu gets 60%, as a result low ROI for Google.
Fact No. 2. Google is facing the looming lawsuit on the unauthorized book scanning on Google’s net library. Google only offers US$60 compensation for each which makes all the authors furious. Apparently this is an act of unrespectful to the author and against the copyright law
The cyber attack happen everyday from everywhere around the globe. Quite frequently no one can pinpoint exactly the source of the attack. Similarly did Google attacked Baidu a few days ago??? As far as the censorship is concern, the US, France, Australia, Singapore, etc all have the censorship law. Why do you think the communist party cannot survive in the US? It is because of 80 years of continuous terror and censorship to the party member even up to now. I don’t think it is the behavior of free speech and a democratic society should have and apparently against the first amendment in the US Constitution. Don’t you know that every phone call, facsimile, email, SMS, money transfer are being monitor in the US by the giant computer belongs to the government under the name of “terror act”.
Therefore Google’s exit strategy is only to cover up the shortcoming for China strategy. Would the Chinese government consider this as an important issue, the answer is definitely no. The Chinese government would not even budge in the past to open up the internet from many western developed countries including the US, why should it be now from a puny media company like Google. The company has undermined and miscalculate the determination of the Chinese authority.
There is no need for many Gmail and Google’s search engine users to be furious, the inconvenience will only happen temporarily. The Chinese netizen should have the confidence that within a few years, with the massive domestic resources, home grown Chinese companies will develop search engine equally or better than Google.
January 23rd, 2010 at 12:16 pm
@ MAC
“It is wrong to suggest there is no freedom in China.”
It is wrong to suggest that I suggested there is no freedom in China.
As for your comment about there being ‘freedom to be educated’, I would say that that is more of a basic human right. Alas, there is not nearly enough freedom of information and discourse within China’s education system.
January 30th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Here’s a bit more sobering reality for the world to ponder:
http://tinyurl.com/y98fgrz
Tip of the iceberg, I fear.
February 7th, 2010 at 10:49 am
[...] When The Economist starts to see the warning signs, it’s time for everyone to wake up to the new reality. [...]