China Emphasizes Laws As Google Defies Censorship

Lomegor writes "Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Thursday that all companies are welcome to operate in China but that they must do so under local laws. Although not explicitly, this is in some way a response to Google's threat to leave the country. China also stated that they have strict cyber laws and that they forbid any kind of 'hacking attack'; when asked if those laws apply to the government as well it was quickly avoided. 'It is still hard to say whether Google will quit China or not. Nobody knows,' the official in the State Council Information Office was quoted as saying." I sure would love to be a fly on the wall of these discussions. We certainly live in interesting times.

Comments

Translation

[gmuslera]

The rest of the world must follow our rules. But we could not.

Re:Looks like email and the desktop were not enoug

[TheKidWho]

Moral relativism needs to be shot to hell.

Comparing the DMCA to political censorship and torture is ridiculous.

Re:Looks like email and the desktop were not enoug

[Sir_Lewk]

The GP accuses you of commiting a fallacy of scale, and I must say I agree.

Sure you can logically draw comparisons between the DMCA and chinese censorship laws, it's not particularly hard or imaginative. The problem is when you compare the two on equal grounds. One involves gross violations of basic human rights, the other involves less Brittany Spears remixes on youtube.

Don't get me wrong, I have strong moral issues with the US patent and copyright laws. But I have far greater issues with human rights violations, regardless of who commits them. Not all atrocities are created equal.

But trying to force the same kind of thinking you have to other people, especially to people in other cultures, just sickens me.

Call me crazy, but I don't excuse the things the Chinese government does just because they convinced their population that they should. If thinking that basic human rights are universal makes me an imperialistic American dog, then I am a proud imperialistic American dog.