Google vs. China: A matter of principle

“Good for Google,” said The Washington Post in an editorial. The Internet giant announced last week that it would stop censoring its Chinese search engine, after suffering what it called a “sophisticated cyber-attack” on the private Google e-mail accounts of Chinese dissidents. Google stopped short of blaming Beijing directly for the attack, but the company’s actions speak volumes. Since 2006, Chinese users searching for “Tiananmen Square massacre” or “Dalai Lama” have come up empty. Now, says Google, all searches will be unfiltered, even if it means the company’s expulsion from China and the loss of around $600 million in annual revenue. Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil,” said Rebecca McKinnon in The Wall Street Journal. But four years ago, Google gave in to its greed for the vast Chinese Internet market and agreed to help Beijing “lie to its people.” In China, Google users could find no information about the country’s poisoned drinking water and foodstuffs, or the substandard buildings that crumbled in the 2008 earthquake, killing thousands. But now, with this startling announcement, “Google has taken a bold step onto the right side of history.”

But what took it so long? said Froma Harrop in The Providence Journal-Bulletin. Google knew from the outset that Beijing was in the business of persecuting dissidents, yet this supposed “human-rights superhero” of a corporation decided to play ball regardless. Could it be that this sudden attack of conscience has more to do with Google’s sliding market share (down to 14 percent) in China? Or its fear that priceless source code might be hacked and given to Chinese-run search-engine rivals? If Google wanted to do the right thing, said Daniel Indiviglio in USA Today, it would stay in China and keep fighting for Internet freedom. Giving up and closing shop would be “cowardly,” granting China’s repressive regime “a firmer grasp over Internet searches.”

Google’s choice here is a truly difficult one, said George Walden in the London Times. Back in 2006, China seemed to be moving in the right direction, toward greater freedom and engagement with the world. Google believed then that its presence in China, even censored, would speed up this process of modernization. Since then, however, “the moral wind in China has changed,” and Beijing is now tightening, not relaxing, its grip on its people, and using the Internet to go after dissidents. Given that turn of events, Google has decided—to its credit—that a relationship that was always morally questionable has become morally indefensible.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up