Behind Google's Recent Decision About China

yuhong writes "This article by The Independent takes a look at what is behind the recent decisions made by Google regarding China, particularly regarding Sergey Brin, born in the USSR, [and whose origins] played a big part in this decision. From the article: 'He's always had an emotional tug within him, saying "we shouldn't be making compromises," says Ken Auletta, the author of Googled: The End of the World As We Know It.'"

Comments

Hate google or not

[GundamFan]

Standing up to China takes stones. Having said that, I am more and more afraid that they'll own all of us in my lifetime anyway.

Re:Hate google or not

[yog]

Hm, I'm not sure why anyone would "hate" Google. I like using all their free stuff, and my Nexus One is the cat's pajamas. I agree with you that it takes some big cajones to stand up to the PRC government, which is getting richer and scarier. But we have to remember a few historical facts. China is currently the low cost acceptable quality manufacturer in the world. This will not hold forever. Remember when it was Taiwan and Korea, and before that Japan? China will eventually face a situation where its cheap labor is a liability rather than an asset. They can't perpetuate this divide between the haves and have-nots forever. The cities will get richer, more expensive to live in, and knowledge worker wages will rise. Infrastructure needs will scream for more taxation, and cost of living will increase. Everyone will want a car, then two cars, then a house with a garage, etc. There's a price for moving to a consumption economy. China's paranoid regime will spend more on expensive new military gear and, gradually, it will increasingly resemble a Western economy. They can "near-source" their manufacturing to the hinterland, e.g. Sichuan, Guangdong, Guangxi, etc. for a while longer but not forever. Eventually, some other manufacturing region will become prominent--maybe parts of India, South America, or Africa, where wages are still very low and people are glad for any kind of work. Or, robotics and nanotech will finally kick in and remove the low wage advantage from the equation, and the U.S. may reemerge as a major manufacturer. A factory on every corner, with made-to-order consumer goods while you wait, for example. As for the Google situation, it's not over yet. I suspect there will be some kind of win-win understanding between the two parties where Google will be relieved of censorship duties, but the PRC government will find some other way to effectively censor search results without either side admitting any concession.

Re:Hate google or not

[OwMyBrain]

Standing up to China takes stones.

Having said that, I am more and more afraid that they'll own all of us in my lifetime anyway.

Google or China?

Re:Hate google or not

[Neoprofin]

The US has been living on credit every single day of it's history with the exception of January 8, 1835, the only time in history the government hasn't owed anyone money.

Re:Hate google or not

[DarenN]

The parent is extremely informative. It's a major problem in some areas of China because property development is very short term in terms of direct input into the economy, and leads to property bubbles where property is overvalued and eventually crashes. Add construction as a large percentage of your GDP then you've got the problem we ran into in Ireland when the construction sector collapsed - it was worth something like 25% of GDP and a correspondingly massive amount of tax receipts. When that income went away... well it hasn't been (and isn't) pretty.

The other (and funnier) result is empty cities, as happened in "new" Ordos (This is a video report) on the Mongolian border. A whole empty city was built, and no-one can afford to move to it. No-one lives in it, it exists because "building is good". Baffling!

Like Father Like Son

[eldavojohn]

This article by The Independent takes a look at what is behind the recent decisions made by Google regarding China, particularly regarding Sergey Brin was born in the USSR which played a big part in this decision.

Interesting, Sergey's father faced the problem of having to compromise by abandoning his faith and culture in order to get the job he wanted (astronomer) or stay Jewish and be reduced/stunted in a select set of careers. Now Sergey has a similar decision where he can choose either his principles or a chance at one sixth of the world's population as a market. Should be an interesting choice.

I hope he realizes that once he cashes in the choice will no longer be his and will be a painfully obvious one for the investors. Capitalistic greed, while much less worse than flaws of implemented Socialism, has its evils too, Sergey.

Re:Like Father Like Son

[Xest]

I wouldn't be suprised if that's why they cashed in- so that they can do a u-turn without losing face themselves, they can simply say the investors decided for them and it was out of their hand. Still, I could be wrong, we may be pleasantly suprised.

That said, he definitely seems to be the good guy at Google- he certainly seems worlds apart from Schmidt who actually seems to believe in the surveillance state.

the Lesser of evils

[Andypcguy]

I've set all 250 computers in my Dept. default search engine to Google. I think Evil is just a part of human nature and it takes real effort to not be evil. I applaud Google for standing up to China and forsaking monetary gains for purity of ideals.

not surprised at Brin

[roman_mir]

I am a stern opponent to anything communist/socialist in nature, being born and raised until the age of 16 back in the non-existent USSR. I am also against this buddy-buddy system, that apparently all of these so called capitalist societies have. There is no principled system anywhere, in the 'communist' countries, it's basically a dictatorship and no free enterprise is allowed to compete with it, because there is no competition, the planned economy is doomed. In the so called 'capitalist' countries now it is all about buying power in the government to push forward agenda of getting free money printed by the government.

Hong Kong seems to be the place where the society came as close as possible to the real free market system, money is created by private entities, there are competing currencies, government can't dilute the value and give preferential treatment to certain corporations, banks, etc. You don't like what one monetary system is doing, move your business to another. I am sure it has its problems, which I am not aware of, since I never lived there, but it seems to be the best out of everything I have seen or hear of so far.

I am not surprised that Brin is the guy who takes the principled stand and I would not be surprised to find out that he came up with the 'no evil' slogan. It's obviously going to be a losing battle, if we know anything about people, they'll fuck up anything until it's dead, look at HP, they used to be the 'no evil' company of engineers. I just remembered the horror stories connected to a professional firm jumping shark-ceo type, Fiorina was her name?

That's the problem, we can't live forever, so our principles die with us and there is nothing much we can do past that to promote our ideals. We try, but looks like we fail in all cases, that's too bad.

Good luck to Brin in this battle, I don't know that even his crazy fortune can fight off this one for too long and I don't know how interested he will be in that once enough pressure is applied from enough people interested in profit motive only.

Re:not surprised at Brin

[roman_mir]

Cop out ? Are you asking me if I am using the fire department service or not? I am answering to you: I am forced to only use the services, since they are already paid by the taxes. What part of 'I am already paying for it' can't you comprehend?

If I had a choice to use competing fire-departments / police departments would I be upset about the extra choices? No. I would gladly pick ones that I am more comfortable with.

Is this comprehensive enough for you?

Re:not surprised at Brin

[calix0815]

>>>
Hong Kong seems to be the place where the society came as close as possible to the real free market system, money is created by private entities, there are competing currencies, government can't dilute the value and give preferential treatment to certain corporations, banks, etc.
>>>

You obviousely don't read the HK newspapers. The big tycoons have the system in their pocket. They can even control over a good part of their mini parliament because corporate bodies have exclusive voting right for some of these 'functional seats'. Just because some players can do what they like and and play the system doesn't make a free market. That kind of free market is like a duel between a marine with big gun and a five year old.

For businesses outside the tycoons areas of interest there is indeed a good and competetive market, though. In the labour market there is not really much competition possible for the labour force. Take it or leave it. The companies are unionised, not the people. But I guess eventually the erosion of wealth in the lower and middle classes will eventually lead to the most amazing collapse of a housing market the world will have ever witnessed.

In my opinion markets will always work and do what they are supposed to do. But it can take a long while and will be a very volatile process when it finally kicks in. We just had a *small* taste of it.

Re:Corporate warfare...

[tnk1]

Could MS have done it? Yes. Did they have to? No. China's government is plenty evil without Redmond being involved. Occam's Razor and all of that.