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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.
Not politic, business.
Operating in china does not bring google profit. Add Baidou, a govt-subsidied competition and being routinelly hacked, they have reasons leave market. Saying they leave market makes them look weak and stock price would drop.
Making chinese goverment kick them out makes for quite nice PR stunt and will not really to much about stock price. And it actually makes them look strong.
They are still happy to censor in many other countries.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
The difference is probably that Google can easily do without the Chinese market. They're by far not the number one search engine in China. And the chance to become it is slim at best.
On the other hand, not playing along with China's demands would endear them greatly to a lot of groups. US nationalists and US government being amongst the first, not to mention every free-speech supporter from the EFF to most geeks around the globe. It sure would greatly improve their PR and image, and would probably make a few people overlook their own privacy "problems" because "at least they didn't bend over to the Chinese government".
Dunno if it would be so bad for Google to simply flip the Chinese the bird. The goodwill boost might offset the financial loss.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My employer does a lot of business in China, both development work and sales into the chinese market.
This incident with google has really made me stop and think about whether the whole game is rigged.
Invest in China? Your technology will stolen by chinese competitors.
Outcompete your chinese competitors? The local laws will be changed in their favor.
Complain? Your people will be arrested.
Leave? Your assets will be nationalized.
The chinese haven't done any of that stuff to my employer, as far as I know. But it is the only country we do business in where the question might even come up.
It turns out that doing business in a country without the rule of law entails some serious business risks.
I wonder how many executives are having this same thought, right now?
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