Slashdot Mirror
Google's New Approach For China Is To Serve From Hong Kong
abs0lutz3ro writes with a major update to the Google/China situation we've been discussing so much lately:
"Google has stopped censoring simplified Chinese search results on google.cn by redirecting users to google.com.hk, which Google maintains is entirely legal. From the official blog: 'We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced—it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.' Seems like google.cn got served (from google.com.hk)."
"Invade, conquer and annex Hong Kong."
Good thing they didn't redirect towards their servers in Taiwan!
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Same country, different laws regarding censorship.
If I recall correctly, China is under obligation to at least pretend that Hong Kong is still free. Which is to say, citizens of Hong Kong technically maintain all the freedom they enjoyed under British control. When the authorities manipulate HK media or harass citizens, they keep it secretive. China has to be a lot more low-profile when they oppress the people of Hong Kong, so that the global community doesn't suddenly start to care again and call shenanigans.
This whole censorship thing is mainly a marketing ploy. Google is making a gamble that this will help them gain market share in China.
Don't get me wrong I'm in favor of what Google is doing and I hope this leads to the end of censorship in China. But from a business persepctive, Google is threatening to pull out because it's not making much headway in gaining marketshare, while Baidu consistently have 60% marketshare. They are earning only about 1.5% of their profit from China. This recent strategy to threaten to drop censorship not only differentiate Google's search engine product from others in China, but also generates alot of news over there and over here. As much I would like to believe that a company is putting ethics above profit, the reality is giving uncensored search access to China is the last of Google's concerns (esp. since they still offer censored search to numerous other countries). But since Google's goals and my hopes coincide, go Google!
Last time I checked, Hong Kong was was transfered to full Chinese control about 13 years ago. So is this some sort of symbolic stunt done for some obscure reason, or is it actually supposed to accomplish something? Saying you're going to defy Chinese control by moving your HQ from Beijing to Hong Kong is like saying you're going to get out from under U.S. control by moving from New York to Chicago.
More like moving to Guam, Northern Marianas, or maybe, Puerto Rico or USVI given the 'non-State' status of those.
Just like chess, one player (China) will eventually decide it's had enough and just flip the board over, declaring victory.
China would, and probably will, manually block Google.hk. But it'll be fairly embarrassing that it's legal in some parts of their country but not others.
Yes, exactly. But this is *very* interesting from a geopolitical perspective. Because of Hong Kong's former status of a British colony, it has always enjoyed a separate set of rules, apart from "mainland" China. The censorship laws are generally less intrusive and citizens there have much more free reign over their affairs. I believe there are even elected officials who are not mandatorily members of the Communist party.
My interpretation of this is that Google is REALLY pissing China off intentionally by doing this - exploiting the schism between Hong Kong and mainland China, forcing issues to the forefront which the Chinese like to ignore (like why does Hong Kong get less centralized control than other parts of China). This could be quite a large issue in China and Hong Kong should China decide to dictate terms to the more autonomous Hong Kong.
Very interesting development...
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Horsey to pointy guy six.
Hmm... Get him, boys!
The British already gave .hk back to the PRC back in 2000 (i think that's the right year), so they already have it. It's just maintained as a semi-autonomous "free-enterprise zone" iirc. They don't need to invade it, conquer it or annex it. They just need to enforce the law there in the same way they do everywhere else.
Hong Kong is part of China, it has different regulations however as a result of being handed over by the UK. I believe the phrase is "one country, two systems". In all fairness its not a bad idea; if China were this flexible over Tibet they would be getting a lot of International Brownie points
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
So, what % of the search market will Google now own after this change?
I would imagine a LOT of people would start using Google if they found out it was uncensored.
It will be interesting to watch how their market share changes from this.
Because of Hong Kong's former status of a British colony, it has always enjoyed a separate set of rules, apart from "mainland" China. The censorship laws are generally less intrusive and citizens there have much more free reign over their affairs. My interpretation of this is that Google is REALLY pissing China off intentionally by doing this - exploiting the schism between Hong Kong and mainland China, forcing issues to the forefront which the Chinese like to ignore (like why does Hong Kong get less centralized control than other parts of China). This could be quite a large issue in China and Hong Kong should China decide to dictate terms to the more autonomous Hong Kong.
How is Google's "Don't Be Evil" mantra going to be viewed if they end up causing the censorship of all of Hong Kong's internet access? Ouch.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
China has 5 different types of Autonomous areas: 1) Autonomous banner (in Inner Mongolia) 2) Autonomous County 3) Autonomous Prefecture 4) Autonomous Region. Autonomous region has its own local government with the right to appoint the governer (from the local minority) For example Tibetan people in Tibet, the Zhuang in Guangxi, the Uyghur in Xinjiang, the Mongols in Inner Mongolia, and the Hui in Ningxia. 5) Special Administrative Region Special Administrative Regions of China include Hong Kong and Macau. Special Administrative Regions are responsible for everything except diplomatic relations and national defence. So effectively Hong Kong and Macau have their own legal system, completely different from the rest of the country. More importantly unlike in mainland China in Hong Kong it is possible to watch Youtube and use Facebook.
Google is not responsible for China's response.
If a robber points a gun at a child and tells you to hand over all your money, and you refuse, and the child gets shot, you are NOT responsible for the child's death. That would be ridiculous, and would essentially give criminals legal force. The robber alone is responsible.
Pragmatically, this might cause trouble for Hong Kong, but morally, Google's in the right here.
This type of logic is inane. If a spouse says "Don't make me hit you," and then proceeds to beat their spouse for not having dinner ready the person doing the beating is at fault. China is responsible for China's actions pure and simple. What Google has does in perfectly LEGAL within the current legal structure of China, if they don't like their own laws....
I love this play by Google, China is forced into one of two things: Either A, admit the people of Hong Kong are a significantly different culture than the rest of the country (in that they can handle uncensored access to information but the rest of China cannot). Or B, trying to enforce the mainland censorship laws on a large, prosperous group of Chinese people who are have been without this kind of interference from the mainland for a long, long time.
They'll be reluctant to do B because it's entirely possible that Hong Kong is politically powerful enough to actually do something to change the status quo. Of course, if they do A, then they are saying Hong Kong's success is partially explained by their more open culture, which they absolutely cannot have since it implies that the mainland culture is inferior. And they did it in such a way that they are obeying the letter of the law in China, telling the Chinese people the reason for the move, and just plain rubbing China's face in the duplicity of it all.
Since the Sino-British Joint Declaration stipulates that China cannot interfere with the economic system, rights or freedoms of Hong Kong until 2047, I'm sure Google won't be kicked out too soon.
Chiang Kai-Shek's only virtue was that he wasn't Mao. Past that, neither he nor the Kuomintang were exemplars of good governance, which is why Mao was able to overrun China in the first place. The only reason the KMT (and, by association, Taiwan) hasn't revoked its claim to the mainland is because doing so would be interpreted by the PRC as a declaration of independence. Past that, the KMT is about as likely to retake the mainland as the Tories are to retake the US.
Embarrassing? Why? The US has many regional laws too.
May the source be with you.
Another interpretation could be that this move to hong kong allows the Chinese government to save face. They've been very public about their issues with google's operation in mainland China, while google is far from the biggest player in the market.
The idea of the censorship is not just to totally block access to certain information. Reminding people where the line is drawn (no matter how vaguely) by public shows of power is just as important. Chinese censorship, afaik, is more concerned with the broadcasting side of communication than with the receiving end. It's hard to prevent people from looking for information (see ToR / proxies etc).
It's easier to go after the source ('dissidents') and scare people into not spreading information. Going after google in the state newspaper and on tv etc. is also a way of communicating to the chinese people that 'our rules are still in place'.
Moving to Hong Kong might allow google to continue their service to China, while at the same time the Chinese government can say that it 'won' the discussion and reach its goal of reminding it's public (the Chinese population) about its position on freedom of information / opinion.
If it works out that way it's a pretty smart business move from google, allowing for a way out of the zero-sum game they were in.
WTF? Um no. We do not all agree on that at all.
Ever since Hong Kong return to China politicians and activists have tried to preserve the region's freedoms. The consensus seems to be that Hong Kong has been losing those freedoms, China has done a lot of meddling and the government has generally sided with the PRC. I don't recall the precise details but recently a number of politicians have openly protested China trying to exert more control. If I remember correctly, I think they suggested Hong Kong's politicians resigning en masse bringing about new elections with the hope that people would vote in those who would preserve the region's autonomy. I don't think much of anything came of it.
From a business perspective Hong Kong is, without question, a far more mature market. They wont face the same kind of cut-throat market still rampant in China. The problem in China for Google isn't simply one of hackers. A company will try to set up a partnership with a Chinese company and that company will turn on them, stealing whatever they can in the process. And the foreign company will be powerless to do anything about it because the Chinese courts almost always side with their own companies. Punishments for Chinese companies tend to amount to a slap on the wrist. Some very successful people have gotten burned badly in China. Certainly, there's success to be had, but you'd better be vigilant and have a very trusted networks. I have friends who have dipped their toes in China and have decided that the potential for success wasn't worth the trouble.
The nature of Google's business gives them the luxury of not having to be physically present in China. But the fact is that they still are in China, they're going to be facing many of the same issues they were facing in the mainland.
If they were serious about making a statement they'd base themselves in Taiwan. But then again, the Taiwanese government probably doesn't want to get involved, especially given the current administration.
The strange things are that the mainland cable TV networks (in the southern provinces) carry full TV programs from HK, because they are more popular than the politically correct programs from the mainland TV networks, but block only during the broadcast of certain sensitive news item. Of course, even a fool would tell something bad has happened by this type of blunt actions. And therefore nobody really believes whatever the government is saying. Yet at the same time, majority of the same people seem to agree that (a) social stability is more important than anything else; (b) some truths are better kept as open secrets.
The only good is that the Chinese government's propaganda control is largely still very blunt and kaming it easy to tell it is progranda. When they fully learned American style political marketing and packaging, it would be worse.
For what it's worth, because basically every single post in this discussion is wrong: 1) Hong Kong Google provides uncensored Internet search results. However, the websites themselves are still censored. For instance, using Hong Kong Google won't be a magic way to access blocked porn sites. Really the uncensored results are kind of a pain for normal use, it just means a bunch of broken links. 2) Hong Kong Google isn't anything new to China. Before Google set up a PRC Google, 3 years ago or so, that was the way PRC China users accessed Google. And for the past 3 years, Hong Kong Google has always been accessible. 3) Hong Kong is China, but the government in effect is guaranteed independence until 2047. Obviously there's some caveats and whatnot, but the PRC wouldn't just renege on this and tell HK Google what to do, because it would look bad internationally, and because they'd like Taiwan to agree to something similar. 4) Really, what this will do is slow Google searches by .03 seconds, and search results will provide a lot of links to websites that have been blocked (which if you're searching non-sensitive items in Chinese language, doesn't happen all that often - if you're searching non-sensitive English items, there are a fair number of false positives). I'm guessing a lot of localizations also will be lost or left undeveloped (for instance, Google Maps can tell you which subways to take to get around Shanghai).
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.