Siding with Google against China

What a “public-relations disaster” for Beijing, said Wang Xiangwei in the Hong Kong South China Morning Post. Ever since Google threatened last week to pull its business out of China because of censorship and cyber-attacks on the e-mail accounts of Chinese dissidents, Beijing has faced “a rising chorus of criticism from a broad spectrum of foreigners, including U.S. government officials and lawmakers, technology professionals, human-rights groups, and the Western media.” China is cast as the bad guy in this drama, while Google looks like a noble crusader. “Apparently caught off-guard and seething with anger behind closed doors,” Chinese officials are desperately trying to downplay the issue.

Google has its own reasons for leaving China, said Beijing’s People’s Daily in an editorial, and they have nothing to do with so-called censorship. The truth is, five years after it entered the Chinese market, Google lags far behind its main domestic rival, Baidu. And that’s hardly surprising: Western Internet firms have a history of failing in China. Yahoo China was taken over by Alibaba, eBay lost out to the Chinese firm Taobao, and no Western instant messaging service can compete with our QQ.com. Censorship is just Google’s “ingenious excuse to flee the Chinese market in which they failed their investors and shareholders.” Of course, the Western media isn’t covering that angle, said Beijing’s China Daily. It is trying to turn this business decision into “a political issue and portray Google as a guardian of human rights and freedom of speech.” Many Westerners are simply “biased against China’s political system” and will take any opportunity “to point their fingers at the Chinese government.”

“More than business is at stake,” said Australia’s The Age. Google issued its threat “with the backing of the U.S. government.” It’s no coincidence that Google’s announcement “coincides with FBI claims” that it traced more than 90,000 attacks on Pentagon computers last year back to China. At the same time, President Obama has pressed China on Internet censorship, and “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has demanded explanations.” Google’s move can be seen as part of a broader U.S. effort to break down “China’s defenses against freedom of expression and democracy.”

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If the U.S. hopes China will blink, it will be disappointed, said Liu Peng in the Hong Kong Economic Observer. Both Google and the Chinese government have valid positions. Google “has acted in accordance with its motto of ‘Don’t be evil,’ choosing to stick with its principles rather than be swayed by business interests.” China, for its part, has been regulating the Internet the same way it supervises other media outlets, “in accordance with the country’s relevant laws.” Ultimately, this is “a question of principle with only two possible opposing responses—there is no middle way that can be chosen.” So it looks like Google will leave China, and that will be “a sad day for the country with the world’s largest online population.”