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Chinese Sites Band Together To Counter Google
egoff writes "The China Search Alliance is a coalition of over 200 Chinese internet portals that have joined together to try to capture the Chinese search market before Google can "invade." Started by China.com.cn, an official government portal, the CSA has now expanded to include mainly commercial, non-governmental, Chinese sites. According to Guangzhou-based New Express News, Google has already approached several Chinese firms about forming a partnership. Being that it started in the government, this looks like a tool for greater control while appearing to be in open competition with Google."
I read the full article about the so-called Chinese search engine. It smacks of further government control. The Chinese people have approached the issue of government control in the usual fashion: total lack of ethics. The Chinese have not expressed any concern whatsoever for the moral implications of the government controlling the Internet and its access.
By contrast, look at our American society in the West. We have debated the issue of the government controlling the Internet. We have expressed grave concern over its moral implications. Heck, even the Japanese have publically debated the issue of government control and censorship and expressed grave concerns.
This Chinese behavior with regards to government control of the Internet is consistent with previous Chinese behavior. For example, immediately after the American nation froze or withdrew investments from mainland China just after the Tienanmen incident in 1989, the Chinese from Taiwan and Hong Kong immediately seized this market opportunity and poured billions of dollars of investment into mainland China. As another example, the Chinese on Taiwan use their constitution to declare that Tibet is part of mainland China while the Chinese People's Liberation Army torture and kill Tibetan nuns.
I really wish that people in the West would wake up. We should stop thinking that, somehow, the Chinese people are like us in the West. They are not. They are very different from us. We foolishly extol the Chinese values that we shallowly see among Chinese immigrants in the West.
We should look deeper. The Chinese are over-represented in our engineering and business schools at our elite universities. Yet, the Chinese are under-represented at meetings of Amnesty International at those very same universities. Why?
This observation is consistent with the story about the Chinese search engine. The Chinese will use this search-engine technology to achieve whatever unethical goals that they can envision. The Chinese have no ethics. The Chinese can understand engineering (in this case, software engineering), but they refuse to understand the basic tenets behind Amnesty International.
What follows is some observations, backed by verifiable sources, about the Chinese.
1. Most Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. A CNN/Time survey showed, in fact, that 60% of the Chinese in Hong Kong support the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. (reference: "Poll: Hong Kong residents optimistic [cnn.com]" ) While East Timorese fought and died for independence from the oppressive Indonesian government, the Chinese in Hong Kong cheered the mainland Chinese government.
2. The constitution of the Chinese living in Taiwan supports the integration of both Tibet and Mongolia into mainland China. While Tibetans suffer and die at the hands of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the Chinese in Taiwan support integrating Tibet into "One China".
3. The Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai. (reference: "Sons of prominent Chinese team up on chip venture [taipeitimes.com]")
4. Senior Chinese military officials retired from the Taiwanese military have gone to mainland China and given military secrets about the American F-16 fighter jet to the Beijing government. (reference: "Military secrets on sale to China [taipeitimes.com]")
5. Most Chinese, including those living in the United States of America, support the territorial ambitions of mainland China. Most Chinese support integrating Tibet into mainland China. Most Chinese support integrating the Spratleys into mainland China. Most Chinese support integ