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China Criticizes Google's "US Ties"
krou writes "State-run news agency Xinhua has attacked what it calls Google's 'intricate ties with the US government' amongst its high level officials, claiming that it's 'an open secret that some security experts in the Pentagon are from Google.' They have also accused the company of trying to change Chinese society by imposing American values on it. Xinhua said that 'One company's ambition to change China's internet rules will only prove to be ridiculous.' Google has denied the claims. Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell said that 'The decision to review our business in China was entirely Google's and Google's alone.'"
that while some Internet users in certain Western countries may see the Internet as something which exists independently of society and is merely a medium through which two individuals may communicate, from the Chinese POV it is a part of society and therefore allowed to be controlled.
To be totally honest, I agree with the Chinese POV, since $People \in Society$ and $Internetusers \subset Society$.
China is taking its lead from North Korea on the propaganda front?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
My government is using the Internet to spy on me? Who knew?
Secret Services/Intelligence must get information
there is information in the internet
where is information seeked for: in search enghines
to know what is searched for you ought to sit behind a search engine, best Google
and you can then also influence what is being found
much cheaper than Echelon
And in the answer streams from a search engine one can embedd other things such as trojans etc...
QED
???
If I wanted to read chinese propagada, I would go to the source:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/
Google is behaving far more ethically than the State Department. If they were really Pentagon puppets, they'd be more concerned with trying to add 2% to the value of the Yuan rather than with trivial little things like free speech and political freedom.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
China needs to learn that in the U.S. the corporations run the state, not the other way around.
While it would not at all surprise me if the relationship between aspects of the US intelligence apparatus and aspects of google is rather cozy(they'd merely be joining the long list of data broker companies for which that is true*cough* ChoicePoint, *cough* Acxiom, *cough*AT&T); it takes real chutzpah for a country where enterprises owned outright by the state and/or military are common, standard practice, to start moralizing about the shady and nebulous ties between google and America's spook infestation.
???
If I wanted to read chinese propagada, I would go to the source:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/
You know, I wish I 1) spoke some variant of Chinese and 2) knew more about Chinese media outlets. I wrote a journal post about this situation back when it was developing and tried to find a diverse viewpoint in Chinese news related to Google's ultimatum. It turned out to be more humorous and an exercise in futility than anything else. Does anyone who speaks the language know of a 'subversive' news source out of China? Or anything at all offering balanced and multiple views in the reporting? All I see is multiple sources looking like they are offering you unbiased news when, in fact, they are regurgitating something to you that is within a government approved standard deviation of the government approved message.
...
Really, really sad. Also a stark reminder of how thankful I should be of the diversity of our press in the United States no matter how sorry it may look at times
My work here is dung.
It is just one company, right? In theory they shouldn't even be taking notice...
If they had actually expected to come out fully unscathed from this, they would have not even blinked.
China's censorship system had worked so far only because the Chinese always had options/alternatives when blocked from sites containing "dangerous ideas". The Chinese public simply accepted the government explanation. But Google, as the world's leading search engine, is something that is pretty much an inherent part of internet. Blocking a valuable internet resource requires much more rationalization, which is exactly what has the Chinese government sweating. It will be much harder to sell to the internet-using Chinese public. As such, this actually can lead to a relaxing of censorship in China. If not, it will lead to a realization on the part of Chinese public as to how they are actually visibly suffering by tolerating a non-democratic fascist state. Both are the first baby steps on the road to self-determination and freedom for the people in China.
Sadly, the said Chinese government is banking on having an alternative in competing search engines such as that of Microsoft. If Microsoft fails to follow Google's example, it will now actually be actively working to keep the seeds of democracy out of China.
Not that Microsoft, would be interested in anything apart from its profit line, considering it doesn't really believes in any kind of business ethics.
Yes, we all love to hate the chinese. But there's some truth in there. The US is aggressively exporting its values and believes to the entire world, and it isn't asking if anyone wants it. Hollywood is the biggest propaganda machine ever, far more subtle and effective than any Nazi or Soviet Russian government efforts. And yes, Google is part of a culture as much as it is a company, and is bringing that culture to the world.
Most of the world is eating it up. A lot of people welcome it. Few of them made a conscious decision among alternatives on the matter of culture and spirit.
I'm not debating if the US culture is "good" or "bad" here, just stating the fact that the amount of culture that is in the american way of doing business is seldom reflected.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The US government has done many awful and unjust things but it is a beacon of human rights when compared to the Peoples Republic of China.
What's happens to US citizens when they criticize the US government? What happens to Chinese citizens when they criticize the current government of China?
An honest answer to this test should quiet the post we will see here today. Somebody is going to apologize for the atrocities of the Chinese government by saying that the US government is no better. I can criticize both the US government and the Chinese government. I don't fear any reprisal from the US government for that criticism. Chinese citizens can have their lives taken away or be imprisoned for little more than a charge of 'creating instability'.
Yes, obviously. It can't possibly have anything to do with Google's value coming from allowing people access to information and Chinese government's power coming from denying people access to information. Clearly, this is not about Chinese government wanting to keep its Ministry of Truth running and Google being a threat to that, but instead it's about Google trying to control Chinese government.
I guess every puppetmaster's worst nightmare is for the strings to get cut...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I'm not sure Google is actively working to further the interests of the US. Instead, Chinese leadership is incapable of appreciating the differences between US policy, US culture, and plain ole' innate freedoms. Chinese leadership sees everything through a Han cultural perspective, with everyone not Han is either a strong barbarian intent upon conquering China or a weak barbarian who should be conquered by China.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Bah. As if in the US's case the "country" has anything to say about it. China has some notion of "country" and keeps its companies aware of it. The US is owned lock, stock and barrel by corporations who throw around terms like country and patriotism when it is convenient for them - usually when they need some cannon fodder and tax payer funding to defend or acquire what is in their corporate interest.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
That's not what is happening here. What's really happening is that the last 12 years of giving the rich tax breaks and giving them free money has caused them to be even more greedy. Instead of reinvesting that money in America, they fired all their American workers and closed down the American factories and opened new ones in China. They started off saying that only the low-skilled work will be moved, to where they are now moving engineering and higher level skills. And they are trying to hide that they are doing this. Just look at IBM recently saying that they will stop reporting employee levels by country. The rich don't care if they destablize America and get a little dirty working with a dictatorship because the were already dirty making their money in the US. The movement of jobs doesn't indicate that people don't care about these jobs, it shows that the rich have no allegance to any country and are killing America for greed. Plain and simple.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
You mean like free trade?
The Chinese government *wants* American values, but cafeteria style. They want free exchange of information so long as it is information leaving America and entering China. They don't want information leaving China or worse yet circulating within China. The Chinese government wants America to be open and pursue classical liberal trade policy while it remains closed and pursues mercantilist policies. It wants America to be true to its respect of sovereign nations, but to forget about every individual's sovereignty over his own opinions. It demands the American not interfere in free markets while the Peoples Liberation Army operates businesses and party official parlay their connections into business wealth.
China has rejected the extreme form of socialism it was founded on, but it has not adopted the enlightened capitalism of Europe and America. It has recreatd the caricature of American capitalism portrayed in its own propaganda: a system in which corrupt wealthy men pull the strings of corrupt government.
It's no wonder they don't want American values: those values empower the working class.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Most people do. Here is what they see about financial holdings in the US:
Top 1% owns 43%
Next 19% owns 50%
Bottom 80% owns 7%
Most people see no "me" in those statements.
> However if a company doesn't do this things, then the stockholders sue saying that the CEO's were not doing their best to maximize profits.
A situation which could be remedied by changes to some laws. More importantly would be getting Wall Street off companies backs so they can plan more than 3 months out. The latter has less to do maximizing corporate profits than the Street's own interests, profits, and bonuses.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.