China Starts/Stops Blocking Google

shekared was one of a number of readers to write in to tell a similar story. He says "I'm an American currently living and working in Chongqing, China. As of 9am (UTC +8) China began blocking google.com, gmail.com, google analytics and many if not most other google sites other than google.cn. Internet speed for connections outside the mainland have in general have come to a crawl. Surprisingly this has yet to pick up major coverage in the press. Using an open proxy or VPN for connection to hosts outside of the mainland continues to allow access to google, as does connecting directly to a google.com IP address. As of 6pm (UTC +8) access to gmail and google.com have returned to normal."

Comments

Local Laws

[CowboyBob500]

As an American working in China you should realise that you have forfeit your American rights and are now living under Chinese law. As such the Chinese can block your access to whatever they choose. And, amazingly, they also have the right to block access to services provided by American companies.

This is not news, nor should it be news. China is a sovereign nation and can do as it pleases within its own borders as long as no international laws are broken; and I'm pretty sure that denying access to Google does not fall into that category.

Re:Local Laws

[LordKazan]

Yes because obviously he's complaining that "The great evil china is violating my rights".

No.. it simply stated that china started blocking google. When one of the most censorship happy regimes starts blocking the biggest search provider in the world IT IS NEWS.

Your rock, go back under it.

Re:Local Laws

[fiordhraoi]

Sure, they CAN do as they please. That doesn't mean they're going to make correct/good decisions.

Saying that something is okay as long as it's not covered by existing international law is saying "do anything you want as long as the rest of us haven't thought of it yet." Indeed, international law barely exists - at core it's nothing more than the various treaties and agreements between states. It tends to have very little to do with individuals. There is no international Congress that can pass a law that affects all nations - don't even get me started on the UN (or as I've taken to calling it lately, the League of United Nations).

If China wanted to execute all couples who had more than two children, they could do so. It wouldn't be against any international law. Does that make it right? Does that mean humanitarian organizations should back off and shut up? Hell no.

Being a sovereign nation gives you the ABILITY (not the right) to do as you wish in many circumstances. It sure as hell doesn't give a "Mandate of Heaven" that says all your decisions will be correct and good for people.

Sure, censoring Google may seem like a small thing, but compare it to the censorship that still exists regarding things like the Tiananmen square massacre - or as it's euphemized in China, the "June 4th incident." It's still a completely forbidden topic in media and print. That's the kind of BS that overarching censorship can lead to.

Re:Local Laws

[CowboyBob500]

Sure, they CAN do as they please. That doesn't mean they're going to make correct/good decisions.

Correct or good decisions for whom? You as an American?

Re:Local Laws

[TheRaven64]

Correct or good decisions for whom? You as an American?

Yes, him as an American, or me as a Brit. Or you as a... whatever you are. Us, collectively, as people with subjective ethical systems. Being aware of certain types of behaviour[1] allows us to make judgements on whether these countries are, collectively, following an ethical system we regard as compatible with our own. If they are not, then we have the option of not visiting them, not doing business with them or (in extreme cases) supporting rebellions in these countries. Making ethical decisions is a large part of what being human entails. If you are not comfortable with it, then pick a mass media outlet to make these determinations for you; it's easier than thinking.

[1] In this case, it sounds like someone just messed up with a DNS cache configuration, rather than doing anything malicious, but let's talk hypotheticals for a bit.

Re:Local Laws

[WindBourne]

China is a sovereign nation and can do as it pleases within its own borders as long as no international laws are broken;
Trade restriction. And EU is bringing that up to UN. Just like America did recently about CHina restricting EXPORTS of Steel making minerals. China is cheating all the way to the bank, and the west either needs to crack down on China, or better yet, SLOWLY raise similar barriers. For example, slowly drop the dollar and Euro against the Yuan on imports. That will encourage China to free their money. Likewise, if China does not drop their trade barriers like they agreed to do by 2002, then we should slowly and methodically raise ours.

Re:Local Laws

[fiordhraoi]

Well, first off, a large number of those 100k dead aren't due to US bombing/gunfire/etc. I haven't scoured the site for exact numbers, so I can't give you hard percentages and so on. In fact, so far in 2009, more people are being killed per day in suicide attacks than with gunfire/executions. I know you didn't explicitly say they were all due to the US, but it was implied.

Second, there's a moral difference between shooting at someone intending to kill them and someone getting caught in the crossfire due to literal crossfire, mistaken identity, or any of a host of other screw ups. Sure, the person is just as dead, but we're talking about moral issues here. No, I'm not saying that all civilian deaths in Iraq were unavoidable, but the US military as a whole is not going out and deliberately targeting noncombatants. China most certainly did.

Third, there is a large time/concentration difference. The violence in Tienanmen square essentially happened in one day, though the protests there had gone on for weeks. There are no hard numbers available (though I'm sure they exist somewhere in the CCP's records) but estimates are that somewhere around 2,500 people were killed and another 10,000 or so injured. Concentration of deaths does play a role in whether or not something has an impact. For example, according to the website you posted, approximately 12 civilians per day are currently being killed in Iraq due to violence. At the height of the violence (after the initial push) in 2006-2007, about 60 civilians per day were being killed. In the US alone, an average of 110 people per day die in car accidents. Does that make any of these deaths less horrible for the families involved, etc? No. But from a societal level, it does illustrate comparative actual impact (though psychological impact may differ, obviously).

Finally, can we please institute a Godwin's Law about Iraq, already? If the conversation is about the war in Iraq and whether or not you like it, fine. If it's not, let's keep it on topic. :P

Re:Local Laws

[LostInTaiwan]

Free trade with nations that are not free is call exploitation. It's collusion between an authoritarian government exploiting its silenced population and the merchants exploiting the ignorance of their consumers. Authoritarian governments rule by force and it's naive to think that there will not be a corresponding rise in military prowess with every net inflow of economic dollar, yet we continues to feed countries like China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia as if freedom is indeed free. One day, we are all going to wake up and find ourselves jobless and in debt to some of the nastiest government in the world. What are we doing to do then? They've already caught up to us economically and technologically. Their citizens had all been taught, with help of modern censorship, to believe that we're all a bunch of lazy arrogant bums that deserves whatever is coming to us as deem necessary by their governments. But, that's way way down the line in an uncertain future so who cares right?

At the end, the executives are the only ones who benefits from trading with authoritarian regimes. The executives are the only ones making continuous withdraw from the company coffer via salaries and bonuses while the shareholders play the musical chairs in the stock market. It amazes me to see nationally known companies using chapter 11 filing as if it's part of a normal business plan, never mind that the stockholder's equity are wiped out in such reorganization. The executives don't cares because they know their salaries are guaranteed and there's an endless pool of suckers being drawn into the stock market everyday, either willingly through direct investment or unwillingly through retirement plans.

Come to think of it, is capitalism compatible with democracy? . . . i wonder. I think so. It's what I've been taught it's ingrained in my psyche. But. . . how come it doesn't seem as true anymore.

Google analytics

[ickleberry]

I'd block them too. In fact the practice of blocking google analytics isn't unheard of at all outside of China. It only wastes bandwidth and google/site owners have too much information on your surfing habits already. All these statistics/advertising things just slow shit down and don't really do anything for you.

Re:Let's all go shop at Walmart to Protest!

[El Torico]

The sad part is that few care enough about Democracy, Liberty, and Freedom (add Western Liberal Tradition Value here) to pay higher prices for non-Chinese (or other Slave State) products. Of course, many care enough to endure hardship and risk life and limb in Iraq and Afghanistan to promote those same values (as they genuinely believe). Strange, isn't it?

Re:calm down chinaphiles...

[TheRaven64]

It also said that connecting to the google.com IP address worked, which implies that the failure was in DNS. I've had my ISP's DNS cache occasionally fail to return results, or return an invalid cached result a few times. Doing it for a site as big as Google is embarrassing, but not unheard of.

Re:Let's all go shop at Walmart to Protest!

[TheRaven64]

I wish people would stop lumping democracy in with liberty and freedom. Liberty and freedom are goals, democracy is a tool for obtaining that goal. It is not universally useful. By elevating democracy to a goal in and of itself, you harm the causes of liberty and freedom.

Re:Let's all go shop at Walmart to Protest!

[El Torico]

I don't see where Authoritarian or Anarchism ever effectively promoted Liberty, Freedom, or any other Liberal Western value. Authoritarian states always limit or deny these ideals and Anarchist states always fail to defend the citizenry against outside aggression.

Re:Trends

[betterunixthanunix]

http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2333

BIG MISTAKE

[WindBourne]

Chinese Govt WANTS that. They are busy pushing Baidu, and about to push Baidu into western world. Right now, Baidu controls ~65% of chinese search, while Google is only ~25%. The reason is that Chinese gov PUSHES Baidu and creates rules to help them. For example, Baidu copied Google's 'Im feeling Lucky', so the gov told Google to no longer allow it because it was leading to too many porn sites, but did not do the same on Baidu. What was interesting is that a study was done, it showed that Baidu had either the same rate or possibly more of porn. The big difference is that Baidu will not lead to anti-gov stuff while google might.

Re:Please come to the local station

[gringofrijolero]

...deranged Chinese nationalists...

History has shown that a list of nationalists that aren't deranged would be very short indeed. Nationalism and religion share a very high derangement factor. And that's what makes them both very effective tools in motivating masses of people to do the authoritarian's dirty work for them, with great enthusiasm. It doesn't matter what country they live in. The disease is global.

Re:local plus great wall

[Sinbios]

What the hell do you do that you have a whole apartment full of people watching your every move?

Thought Police

[omegahelix]

When are they going to learn that the flow of information can't be stopped?

Shame on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft if they continue to bow down to the dictators so they can make money in China!