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Google vs. China — Who's Got the Most To Lose?
Barence writes "Google looks set to pull out of China, but who will suffer most? The search engine or China? At last week's South by Southwest conference, Kaiser Kuo, a former director of digital strategy for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency in China, gave an illuminating talk that examined the history of Google and other Western internet firms in China, their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the likely outcomes of the current stalemate. Kuo explained that Google had earned the respect of the tech-savvy urban elite by protecting users, making censorship clear and by protecting its employees in China. That means Google is walking away from a 35% market share, which contains a far wealthier demographic than local provider Baidu. The Government, meanwhile, which has been very pro-competition, is about to hand a complete monopoly to Baidu, harm its international standing and the development of net technologies in the country. Is it a lose-lose situation?"
Google loses, China's reputation will recover after a blip, and Microsoft is waiting with Bing.
The number that was being thrown around in the last thread was around half of that.
Google has the most to lose because they are a company and China is a country.
Google will make its profit, but not as much as if it would have if it stayed in China.
China will make itself whatever its government wants it to become where Google is around or not.
I don't know...
Hey, it turns out that there are stupid questions!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
That is a very, very large beta testing crowd. China will eventually figure out their own technology, but Google will not (any time soon) be able to pass up the benefits of such a heavily populated country.
the Chinese people.
A drop in the sea really - China's going to re-adapt as is Google. Same as eBay, DubLi will have to readapt for the ever-changing world.
Google loses, Baidu wins, and China doesn't give a damn either way. All those Google China employees will likely just move their skills over to Baidu (assuming they were locals to begin with and probably many of the ex-pats as well) and take what they know with them when they do. Baidu gets an automatic monopoly, no matter what Google's current market share, and China, or specifically the CCP doesn't care because they still get what they want- the look of being the caring provider that "supports competition" while still controlling the flow of data.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
With unemployment rising over 10%, I fail to see why I should care about China, the Chinese people, or the government which oppresses China and it's peoples.
I have real issues to deal with, like health care, job security, owning a home, owning a vehicle, etc. It's really bad enough that I have to feel like my country is about to plunge into a 2nd US Civil War every day of the working week... I really just don't care about China anymore. When I bring up the fact they knowingly put lead in our children's toys, smuggle in counterfeit Tylenol and Advil, all while using child and slave labor to manufacture these things, it kinda puts the poop frosting on the shit cake.
Without Google adds, how will the Chinese know that their penises are small much less that there's a cream to make them bigger which costs only $19.95!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Not even a link to a story yet, but the ticker on the BBC News home page is reporting that Google has announced that it has stopped censoring its search engine in China. Since China has already made her position clear on this eventuality I suppose this must mean that Google believes that it might as well be hanged for a wolf, than a lamb.
I'm nipping out for some popcorn; the next couple of days are going to be really interesting...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Duh. There's an easy way to figure this one out: http://googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=google&word2=china
I mean, without China, there's only 5.5 billion people left in the world to cater to. How can they possibly get by on such meager numbers?
Chinese corporations that want to do business in the USA, have to respect USA's law, right? It's just a clash of two value systems. And as Ford would say: "yes, mine is better."
http://www.nealgrosskopf.com/tech/thread.php?pid=68
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
There's a small part of me that would like to see other companies follow in the footsteps of Google. Get out of China. Just leave.
Why?
This is a poor example but I can't help using it. Remember South Africa? There was a time when quite a number of companies just didn't do business there given how that government was (not) working for it's people. I'd like to think this helped change things for the better in South Africa.
It's not that I want to force my idea / style of government onto the people of China, but .. well .. besides North Korea and Cuba are there any other communistic states left? Would any people as a whole choose to convert to a communistic system. I'm thinking no.
And in a way, walking away from China as a whole, send a bit of a wake up call to the Chinese that, "O by the way, we care about how people are treated. We care about freedom." They need to too. When people in a place such as China can see how things are elsewhere in the world, it can and should plant the seed for change for the better for China. Probably overly optimistic on my part but hey, it's something.
Great grand internet firewalls need to go. Speech needs to be free.
don't mess with china
Google is now redirecting to uncensored results via Google.hk, and they have a page showing what services China is blocking so they can track it in a transparent way. Take a look: http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en
They just updated their blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-update.html
...I see this article which says Google is attempting a sort of compromise.
Google Inc. will shift its search engine for China off the mainland but won't shut it down altogether, and it will maintain other operations in the country. It's an attempt to balance its stance against censorship with its desire to profit from an explosively growing Internet market.
On Monday afternoon, visitors to Google.cn were being redirected to Google's Chinese-language service based in Hong Kong. The page said, according to a Google translation, "Welcome to Google Search in China's new home."
Google's attempt at a compromise could resolve a 2 1/2-month impasse pitting the world's most powerful Internet company against the government of the world's most populous country.
I've no idea who 'loses' but i'm sure Microsoft search share will go up if google pulls out . It's not like Microsoft will have any issues doing deals with any totalitarian regime, after all they get their orders from the murky depths of hell itself.
I hope that when google do pull out they re-direct all searches to pages of 'missing history' and goatse man at random.
(Just heard on Channel4 news uk : Google have stopped censoring results!!! )
Anyway good one Google !
At least the Chinese population will get a taste of internet freedom (or at least a freer idea)
Google already has the China domain referred to the Hong Kong domain http://www.google.cn/
Will they start actively trying to sabotage Chinese web efforts? I don't mean by just giving unfiltered results. Will they try to do a Radio Free Europe, only make it actually useful? It wouldn't be the first time a western corporation declared war on China but would they really go so far?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Or, Google keeps a Chinese language site, without any filtering. Let them look like asses for blocking it with their firewall that for some reason, they keep denying exists. Even keep the country code domain, until they force you to leave. That sounds like one hell of a trade dispute with a country that NEEDS a "favored nation" status with us. I still don't understand why google doesn't just remove themselves from the country, but still have a presence easily reached by Chinese citizens. (kind of like gambling sites, that are illegal for US citizens, which is against treaties, and we got a multi-billion judgement against us for)
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
They're starting to tarnish their image as the the Good Guy of the big internet companies. For me, their capitulation to the Chinese government was a big smug on their logo. And, that isn't the only questionable decision they've made in the last few years. Once you lose trust, you never get it back. Blind faith in a company is a powerful asset in itself.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Google certainly bristled under the restrictions of the Chinese government, but they complied with the letter of the law. I'm pretty sure that's not why Google is pulling out.
Google is leaving China because China has been trying to "hack" Google. by that I mean, they used disreputable means to gain access to and undermine Google's technology and resources with the goal of using Google as a vector to attack other American businesses and interests.
Or at least, the Chinese government's action precipitated the pull-out.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Tough business call. If Google knuckles under to keep their market presence in China then they sacrifice a great deal of the good will and karma they've earned through the "Don't be evil" policy.
Refusing to continue to censor in China will clearly be a short-term loss for Google as it's pretty obvious the Chinese government has zero tolerance for any kind of non-compliance. (Heck, their only way to handle any kind of non-compliance is to imprison and Disappear their own citizens, ex-pulse foreigners and fine or refuse business with foreign corporations.)
However, I argue that if Google holds its ground and swallows the short term loss they will win long term. I fully expect Google and democracy as a whole to outlive Communist China.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
... told you
Google is a business, like any other. Do you think that they haven't run a CBA on this move? While the Chinese population is large, the viable market for Google's products is not. How many people in China have regular internet access? How many of those have disposable income to spend on things they see in advertisements? How many Chinese companies that market locally are going to have their profitability affected by search engine advertisements? On the other hand, how much does it cost Google to protect against cyber-attacks from the government? How much does it cost them to lose their trade secrets and IP? How much does it cost them in goodwill elsewhere to remain in business in China, following those draconian laws?
Google is coming out ahead in this move; that's why they made it in the first place. The Chinese government comes out ahead as well, since they gain even greater control over the flow of information within their borders. The only ones who lose are the Chinese people.
Not really, at least what I've read. You might be ok if you're a small operator but once you are occupying a niche that is competing with a state-connected enterprise
Same thing goes for entrepreneurs that start to make a healthy profit, a state-connected enterprise will push you out to assume those profits themselves.
(state-connected refers to those enterprises run or owned by individuals connected to the elite of the "Communist" party, i.e. some general's nephew)
How come whenever it comes to win/lose with business the only factor really looked at is bottom line profit? If I'm reading the entire situation correctly Google is set to win, big, on this decision. Sure they'll be collecting less profit from a major country in the world economics but they save on a number of levels often ignored:
1) They've already faced legal battles regarding the security of their accounts and information. Fighting court battles isn't cheap and the press related to "Google accounts hacked" doesn't bode well for them anyway.
2) Stepping back from a country who has values different from the majority of Google's "customers" will save it from requiring a highly diverse business plan when not necessary. I'm sure its not cheap to run an entirely separate company from their own in China.
I'm certain there's more but there's a little summary, feel free to add your own. Essentially I feel Google wins, sure, they don't have a higher bottom end profit but if they are still in the black at the end of it all then they've bought themselves enough time to re-evaluate their Chinese venture or anything else for that matter.
According to Terry Hird, UC Berkeley, Founder of Negotiation-International, The Chinese are not obsessed with win-win, and are definitely looking for the upper hand.
Many times when your partner is not pursuing win-win, you just need to be prepared to walk away. That's not lose-lose, that's no deal. It's only lose-lose if you stay in and accept the loss.
Make no mistake, losing google will hurt China. If marketshare falls to baidu, then baidu is baidu's incentive to compete is reduced significantly.
Or, Google keeps a Chinese language site, without any filtering.
Interesting idea, and they might just do it. However, lacking any local presence reduces their ability to effectively sell advertisements (which is where there revenue comes from). Maybe they still can, but less so. But then China might crack down on the advertisers.
If they do this, it will be closer to "You can't stop the signal" or "I'll be back" than lets make money today.
Google's market capital: $153.4 billion as of October 5 2009. China's GDP: $4.33 Trillion US dollars as of 2008. China's got more, therefore it's got more to lose. Simple math.
They are just refusing to do business by Chinas terms. Google will still be there, just not censored, edited and altered to suit China authorities. I suspect it will make Google more attractive to Chinese citizens at large, not less. Once China dumps their censoring Google will be the knight in shining armor while Bing, Baidu etc are the crooks nobody will want to associate with. My suspicion is that Google plays this for the long run and has calculated there aren't enough short term benefits selling their soul to the devil.
HTTP/1.1 400
Nice! With that kind of reading comprehension I presume you are an ESL student?
A lot of technology that goes over to china is stolen by the chinese government or other companies. Now china will lose it's ability to learn anything from a premier technology company. And Google keeping their secrets will allow them to make more money, I expect that is why they are leaving after the chinese government got caught hacking into Google's Systems.
Plain and simple. They want to control the information flow and cutting out Google is huge for that. Google loses out on alot of revenue. 35% of China is about 700 million people. Thats alot of money they will lose. The Chinese people will hurt the most though.
I did a scientific simulation to determine the loser in this scenario. China loses by 100%
Just break up already! Honestly, there's less drama in a year's worth of tabloid stories about some boofruck celebrity couple's breakup and the custody of their mutant child.
... if - after having tried to compromise - perhaps hoping to slowly leak some freedom, perhaps naïvely and hoping, after all, to make a buck out of it as well - Google really does go all the way and walks out of this open-air experiment of Corporate Fascism that is the PRC... ... I will - for once - open my wallet and buy shares.
I've donated to RIAA Radar, and that was only for silly tunes and jingles. This is about Freedom of Speech, Human Rights!
I will, I promise. If they do walk away, it would be such a precedent... such a clear, outstanding, unique, resounding, revolutionary, provocative event
Edo
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-update.html
From the end of google's blog post:
Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.
Google may be prepared to "exit" as in get kicked out, but they are not leaving China on their own. They are however stopping censorship - the real question here is how will China respond?
From a marketing standpoint, they can take the high-road here and look brilliant and doing no evil. They are also the only ones who can claim they don't censor and you will - at least in the short term - see their 35% market share (or whatever) shoot up - while also ratcheting up pubic opinion in the US.
-CF
google loses a big share of it's users When the world has more contentious issue like nuke by China I don't think google pulling out would have enough repercussion.We don't hear other companies pulling out.
why
RTFA. That's exactly what they're doing.
www.google.cn now redirects to www.google.com.hk - a site that is not affected by Chinese censorship, and is in the same language.
"With that kind of reading comprehension I..."
Thanks for the setup line, Mr. Bush.
Because everyone knows that Google IS the modern internet.
It doesn't matter how successful such a movement may be. If it significantly dents China's exports, their prized rate of torrid economic growth is in deep trouble. The Chinese are enjoying their higher standard of living, and pulling the plug -- if only for a week to two -- will cause quite a few jitters. It may even be one of the few times that economic sanctions actually worked.
(Of course, they could also choose not to buy our debt, but that may not be such a bad thing. If anything, the US gov't will be forced to live within its means.)
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Which the People's Republic will block with the Great Firewall of China.
You might presume to speak for overweight Americans (the larger world), but the world at large most assuredly has not appointed you its spokesperson.
Nice generalization. And you couldn't hope for a better opportunity to spout it out, no? How long were you holding that one inside of you.
When you have to resort to almost-racist generalizations to defend a point of view, that's an indication you didn't have a valid point of view to begin with.
I've never heard of that. Did you mean Windows Phone 7 Series Mobile R2 SP3 Home Ultimate Starter Business Premium Platinum Live Arcade Elite Upgrade Office Enterprise Complete Upgrade Edition?
I disagree there are no stupid questions, only stupid people.
A gilded cage is still a cage. Golden handcuffs are still handcuffs. Comfortable cells are still cells. Freedom and liberty are not "cultural" issues.
You're arguing that the Chinese people do not need to be free because they are well cared for. In the understatement of the year, they aren't, but even if they were, comfort is not a reasonable trade for freedom.
I've actually heard your argument before. A white supremacist argued that blacks in America should be grateful for slavery, because the slaves were well fed and cared for, and that slavery allowed their children to eventually become citizens of the United States.
I didn't follow his argument, and with respect, I'm not following yours either.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Of course. It's politics: always a negative sum game. The question for Google is "Will we lose less by leaving than by staying?" How much China loses is none of their concern. The matter of censorship is between the Chinese people and their government.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
And say China loses. Why? China needs the US more than the US needs China. If China pulled out their investments, it would drop the value of the US dollar, which could have the effect of jumpstarting the stagnant US economy by making it suddenly a lot cheaper to relocate jobs into the US (much like how it is with China and their practice of artificially suppressing the value of their currency by 40-50% and gaming the free trade deals with monetary policy). On the other hand, China really, really needs the US market as a result of focusing so heavily on doing business here. Too many companies are set up entirely to deliver services to the US. You pull out the rug on that, those businesses fail and China is stuck scrambling to find some other country as wealthy as the US willing to go into debt with China...which isn't exactly likely. China's investments in the US wouldn't be worth nearly as much as they paid in for. American companies could buy those investments back at a price lower than they were originally sold off for.
What does that have to do with Google? When China's government decides that it can interfere in the practices and control of a private company's product, especially a worldwide recognizable one like Google, which has been operating legitimately within all trade treaties, and even go so far as to hack the systems of a foreign corporation, it brings the whole world's attention back to China...especially the US. It gives the US government more political capital and support to go after the monetary practices that China has used to vault itself to a world economic superpower. Considering the current financial situation in the US, it really has a lot less to lose than China and a whole lot more to gain, despite the debt that the US owes. China's best policy is to operate quietly and keep building wealth and remain inconspicuous...reminding the world every couple years that you're basically a dictatorship that brutally suppresses dissent (and while the US has had some glaring examples of doing similar acts, you can't sanely argue that the US is anywhere near as excessively repressive as China has been over the years) isn't exactly the best way to stay inconspicuous and make countries want to sign more trade treaties with you. It probably gives those other countries' leaders a lot of political capital to consider restructuring those existing treaties. It's a lot easier to gin up the citizens against a country that openly violates the privacy of your country's corporations than it is a country that plays fair. If a country plays fair, corporations that do business with those companies can easily lobby enough support to squash even the basic intent of trade policy reform.
Because, quite frankly, the US still controls the network interconnects for the root servers, so all China can accomplish is local control of the Chinese root domain (hosted in their country by treaty).
We could easily disconnect them from the Net if they try to launch serious attacks, there are switches built into all the satellites and trunks.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Google wins. They have convinced us that they "don't do evil", so we keep using their products and services and feel good about it. And they get positive publicity. Google was not the #1 search engine in china anyway. Chinese people can still use google.com. Maybe.
> We don't hear other companies pulling out.
And you don't hear about other companies not going in or not expanding, either. But it will happen.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Hardly.
1) Google is not pulling out of China. Google is shuttering the domain "google.cn", which is a filtered version of google.hk which is a chinese language version of google.com. It may or may not shut down the local content servers, which never amounted to much anyway. The main reason to have local servers is latency. They are probably not allowed to have google.hk caching servers in mainland China. Google is keeping their marketing, sales, and development operations in China, so turning off a small set of local servers for google.cn in a Beijing co-lo hardly amounts to "pulling out". The latency for google.cn users will be higher, and the government's firewall (supplied by *other* US companies, mind you - where is the complaining about that?) will have an easier time blocking google.
2) What is this "largest market" everyone keeps talking about? Sure, there are more people in China. Just 3 times the US and a bit more than twice EU. But looked at as a disposable income per capita, China is pretty much inconsequential and will be for at least a generation. You can only sell cheap stuff there, en masse. And where is all the really cheap stuff *made*? China. Anyone who speaks of China as this major business opportunity for external companies is just being silly. Name a single US company for which China is a substantially consequential source of revenue. China will be a good market once they build up and sustain an economy long enough to permit a widespread middle class *and* mellow out with their overly-enthusiastic nationalism. Any bets on how long *that* will take? It's a great market for Australia since the aussies sell raw material to feed the Chinese factories. Everyone else is fooling themselves...
3) These companies fail to take into account Chinese nationalism. Even if a foreign product was cheaper and better, 9/10 Chinese would buy the local product. The cultural xenophobia expresses itself as nationalism, and one that's been entrenched (and intact) for thousands of years. Not going to change at the speed with which positive corporate results must happen.
4) Google invested in the next generation of "makers". That was always the plan. And they've executed on that, and continue to. China is an expense. and I doubt Google ever expected to make much. Google has very smart execs, there's no way they wouldn't know this. The revenue from China probably never covered the cost of its in-country operations. The Chinese *people* are the real investment; specifically, the next generation of clever, hard working, creative people who will actually start-up companies and make things. We're 10-20 years away from that. China still has the "robber baron" stage to go through.
I think what most people are forgetting is that a consumers "trust" in you as a company managing their information assets is also an asset in itself when it comes to web services. For google to do business in China it will have to sacrifice it's trusting relationship with it's global user base to gain Chinese market share. The real issue here is will the money gained by selling its global "trust" assets to gain a foothold in China be higher or lower than not selling it. Also don't forget when dealing with the Chinese government you also have to turn a blind eye to spies within your company and open attacks initiated and financed by the CCP on your network to gain information. I just think Google in the end decided that the loss of consumer trust (and control of the business) was higher than the money gained by doing business (if you can call it that) with the Chinese communist party to gain a foothold on China.
Short-term, Google probably has more to lose (although, arguably, they also have more to *gain* by cutting ties with China; it certainly isn't going to do their reputation in the West any harm).
In the long term, however, I think China has more to lose.
Google is not the first company to decide doing business in China is More Trouble Than It's Worth. As it stands, a lot of people deal with China not because they're a pleasure to do business with, but because it "seems important", because China's so big. That's not a good basis for a solid relationship. If they continue doing just about everything they can think of to alienate people, China may eventually find themselves screaming "we're important, come do business with us" to a world that has lost the willingness to put up with their nonsense.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
The Chinese don't like foreign competition in local markets.
And they already have Baidu, which is the #1 search engine for them already.
I fully support Google's decisions regarding China, and I respect your personal decision regarding boycotting Chinese-made products (though I personally won't join in that), but
No. Everyone who took at face value the Halliburton ex-CEO's assertions that Iraq was actively developing WMDs with which to threaten the US and its allies, agreed at the time that Saddam Hussein needed to be taken out. In hindsight, while everyone agrees that Hussein was an evil guy for whom no tears need be shed, most everyone agrees that the invasion of Iraq was one of the most ill-conceived and unwarranted military misadventures ever undertaken by a superpower.
Short term loss, maybe; long term gain.
Resist censorship now. Strengthen "don't be evil" image. This is necessary for public TRUST in the company. Which is necessary for people putting all their data on Google CLOUD. China is slowly opening up, eventually, Google may be able to enter the market again, but with more credibility than those who caved in to censorship.
It's NOT in same language. They plan to make it in Simplified Chinese but now it's still in Traditional (And yes, this is a big difference).
Kaiser Kuo, a former director of digital strategy for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency in China ...and member of Tang Dynasty and Chun Qiu (Spring and Autumn), which world-metalheads should check out. ;)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Maybe Google *had* most to lose. But maybe they lost that when they weren't able to bring greater freedom of information quietly to China. Or maybe they lost it when they couldn't progress their Chinese business in the way they wanted. Or maybe they lost it when they burned their bridges by issuing an ultimatum to the government of an enormous nation (not that I necessarily disapprove of that). By this point it's not clear to me to what extent Google actually do have that much to lose *anymore*, even though they seemed to have a lot at stake before things started souring.
Never been to Karaoke on the mainland I take it, the lyrics are mostly in Traditional Chinese from HK/TW but nobody seems to have too much of a problem with it. PRC people generally can't _write_ Traditional Chinese but reading it isn't so much of an issue. 90% of characters are either the same, or are built of equivalent radicals, 5% include the simplified character in the traditional one and the last 5% can just be guessed from context.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Freedom and liberty are not "cultural" issues.
Freedom is not absolute in any country. Copyrights and patents limit individual freedom. There's mandatory schooling. You can't do certain drugs, sell sex, or posses child porn. There are slander and libel laws. If you are engaged in some sort of business or trade you are absolutely not free to do as you please. You can argue that some rights are universal, but surely the extent of individual freedom is a cultural and political issue to some degree?
Also, consider for a moment that money also brings with it its own kind of freedom. The legal right to publish anti-government material on the internet is meaningless without access to both a computer and an internet connection.
Compared to the largest democracy, India, the Chinese government has been much much more effective at improving living conditions and is also less corrupt. They top officers have engineering degrees and do not have to spend their time conducting political campaigns or raising money from special interest groups. Major infrastructure projects are undertaken without endless debates. People do not have the same rights as western democracies, but there is also a benefit: China has been the fastest growing major economy for 30 years.
If the majority of the Chinese support this system of government, who are we to say that they need to sacrifice it in the name of "freedom."
China censors,Israel does not allow talking about Holocaust thing. What's the difference?
Google: We're leaving! Honestly, if you don't do as we want we will leave! We'll up sticks, decamp, depart, box it (etc).
China: No dice. Let us hold open the door for you, need any help with carrying your boxes?
Google: Ah, umm. We'll just do something you don't like from a safe distance!
China: Sigh. Whatever. Anything interesting on TV?
The problem with creating a huge upheaval about something that is in principle the equivalent of a small child stomping its feet is that you look like a complete d*ck if it (rather predictably) doesn't fly. Google doesn't "really" pull out, it "sort of" provides uncensored content and in generally it exposes its BS for what it was for anyone with half a working braincell.
Yup, China censors stuff (with the use of US equipment, AFAIK), they knew that when they went in. China "spies" - fine, even we consider that proven, how does that in any way, shape or form connect with censorship? Further, is Google China really so incompetent technically that it needs NSA "help" (yeah, right)?
If anything has switched me off from Google's management, this has. The company does interesting things but this was stupid edge to edge, and the humanitarian myth was burned the day they walked into the country. Dumb.
Insert
If the majority of the Chinese support this system of government...
And how are we to know that? How do we know the majority support this system of government? Oh, right, you hold elections. You listen to people who protest.
Well, gosh, elections aren't scheduled for the next gajillion years, and the last major protest resulted in the massacre of more than 3,000 students. The cherry on the top of that mess is that the Chinese government just promised to stop executing prisoners to sell their organs on the black market. Eventually.
But the slaves are so happy, right?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
overweight Americans
almost-racist generalizations
American is almost invariably used to mean a person of the USA, so attacking Americans is nationalist, not racist. Whether or not nationalism is a good thing, it isn't the same as racism, and confusing the two only justifies racism.
According to a poll by the University of Maryland,
Some foreigners come into your country and ask, "Hey, do you support our leader?"
I'm amazed seven percent found the courage to say no.
EVERY dictator in history has had amazing opinion polls. When you can execute your opposition, you tend to remain popular, at least in the official story.
Lee Kuan Yew? The dictator who rules Singapore with an iron fist?! That's who you're calling on to bolster your argument?! Hey, why not pull in the cheery guys who rule Burma while you're at it?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
A dictator brags that he's been doin' a heckuva job and his rule has been wonderful for the country, and you're citing that as proof that it has been?!
Got any other miraculous success stories to share with us? I hear Mussolini made the trains run on time, and Kim Jong Il has just been doin' a bang-up job with a much smaller percentage of his population slated to resort to cannibalism this year...
You're either a troll, a shill or worst of all, a product of the Texas educational system.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Checking your comment history, your sole purpose on this board seems to be extolling the virtues of the Chinese government and what a great guy Hu Jintao is. I hope you're cashing those checks.
In the rest of the world, we remember that Hu Jintao was instrumental in the Tiananmen massacre. Tell your boss to keep washing his hands. That blood's not gonna come off any time soon.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I watched those murderous thugs kill, counting conservatively, 3,000 kids to keep their grip on political power.
The recent PR spin that those same men have put out to whitewash that slaughter nauseates me.
When you came along and suggested that leaving those men in place was best for China, yeah, I got angry and offended. I still am. Talk to Harry Wu about what a great plan that is.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."