China Hits Back At Google 432
sopssa writes "After Google yesterday started redirecting google.cn users to their uncensored Hong Kong-based google.com.hk servers, the Chinese government has now hit back at Google by restricting access to Google's Hong Kong servers. 'On Tuesday mainland China users could not see uncensored Hong Kong-based content after the government either disabled certain searches or blocked links to results.' China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the country, has also been approached by the Chinese government to cancel a contract with Google about having google.cn on their mobile home page for search. China Unicom, the second largest carrier in China, has also either postponed or killed the launch of Android-based mobile phones in the country."
Let the games begin (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:And let the war begin (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this really that surprising? (Score:3, Interesting)
Everyone expected China to do this. It also means that they are saying that the Chinese in HK are different from the rest of China. I wonder if that will affect anything. Not to be cynical, but I am sure the propaganda machine will go on overdrive to put a spin on it.
Next move (Score:5, Interesting)
The next obvious move for Google is to launch their own satellites and provide free satellite internet access for everyone in the world.
Hit 'em where it hurts (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Drawing politcal blood (Score:2, Interesting)
Google si important thing, but Google works on money. Unless they are subsidized by US gov for losses they get for this... behaviour... they are ones being hit hard here. For Chinese people, they are just-another-internet-search and/or just-another-mobile-vendor... Winner is probably MS - US company always playing "nice". and Chinese gov is bussiness-as-usual.
Re:4 to 1 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ping Pong (Score:3, Interesting)
So, Google should try to make the American standard the global standard? Since they are an American company, that may make sense.
The reality is that if Google wants to participate in a market, they have to play by the rules of that market.
In the case of China, they don't like the rules any more and since they can't get them changed, they are effectively leaving the market.
Yahoo and Microsoft have been pretty quiet about this. It's too bad they aren't will to take a stand.
Re:Next move (Score:1, Interesting)
Satellites? You mean, the kind of thing China proved earlier that it can shoot down (and doesn't mind leaving wreckage in important orbits either)?
I don't shop at WalMart. Still can't boycott China (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever since I watched Tiananmen in horror, I have tried to boycott China. That boycott has failed miserably.
I just fixed my brakes last Saturday. I literally tried every auto parts store in town. I could not find rotors not manufactured in China, not in my town on a day's notice. I have no doubt I could have gotten some mail-order, but not in time to get to work on Monday and still keep my job.
I bought a camping knife as a present from Buck Knives, a "Made in the USA" company last year. Despite the advertising claims, the knife came stamped "Made in China."
I bought a set of Carhartt work clothes last year, another "Proudly made in America" company. They arrived with manufacturing defects. Did some checking, sure enough, Carhartt is moving it's manufacturing to China.
I got so fed up when a 14mm wrench snapped in my hand last year I was ready to cough up for Snap-On tools. Guess where Snap-On is moving their manufacturing?
Even the "proud-to-be-an-American-we-support-the-troops" redneck favorite companies Spyderco pocketknives and Surefire flashlights are moving to China.
Neal Stephenson was prophetic. The only thing we know how to make in this country any more are pizzas and movies.
Re:OMG (Score:3, Interesting)
I know I learned it at my public high school.
Oh, he learned it. It's just that irrational finger-pointing at the U.S. has apparently replaced the national sport of many countries. That's too bad ... there's plenty of legitimate criticisms to make.
Re:OMG (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing you've got to bear in mind is that China is developing. Back in 1989 China was much poorer and peoples lives were much more controlled - to the point where the government told them where to live and where to work. Essentially it was sort of like North Korea. Then Tiananmen happened. The government basically won that round but they were seriously rattled. They decided on a policy of economic reform but kept the politics unchanged. Now I suspect that most Chinese people saw development as a priority. China quickly became capitalist. It's still rather poor - GDP per capita is between Albania and Turkemenistan [wikipedia.org]. Still the state's strict control over the economy has largely gone. They can afford computers and can get on the internet. Chinese netizens have had regular skirmishes with the government, e.g. Grass Mud Horse [wikipedia.org].
More seriously there growing numbers of mass incidents [zonaeuropa.com], the PRC term for riots usually ones against corrupt local officials. Plus there's a good chance that rapid growth driven by exports might slow if America stops importing. And in any case 1989 is not the only outbreak of anti government activity - there was the Beijing Spring [wikipedia.org] and pretty much total anarchy during the Cultural Revolution.
It's also interesting that the Beijing Spring happened in 1977 after Mao died. There was a second Beijing Spring in 1997 after Deng Xiaoping died - the China Democracy Party was founded and allowed to register by some local authorities until the central government banned it and rounded up the members.
Now Hu Jin Tao is about to retire. Essentially China is due for a political crisis. While it is inevitable that the Chinese government will try and slam the door, it's not completely guaranteed that they will succeed.
Re:Ping Pong (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I hold no illusions that all the nations that matter will unite to boycott PRC economically. But it is still possible to be a moral man in the immoral world. I have found out that I can often replace household goods from China with EU made ones which are only marginally more expensive. P.S. The other real problem of course is the apathy of 300-400 million Chinese who profited economically in the last 20 years under the current regime's economic policies. If there will a revolution it will be led by the other 1 billion angry peasants and I doubt that they will demanding democracy, human rights and free market. More like take by force anything valuable from fat city dwellers and redistribute it among the poor.
Chinese protectionism (Score:5, Interesting)
China has worked out how to be protectionist without being provably protectionist to the WTO. So, rather than offer an (illegal) export subsidy to it's manufacturers, it lowers its currency by regulation to give the same mathematical effect without allowing retaliation from other WTO countries. Rather than applying illegal tax or tariff penalties on foreign corporation, it uses clandestine hacking attempts, trumped up charges tried in closed courts (eg, Rio Tinto), and creates an environment where anybody could be arrested at any time at the government's whim, to make life uncomfortable for foreign corporations on its shores, while cosseting its own companies that have close ties to the government.
And, sadly, Obama, Brown, and other western leaders just play along, making comments like "we mustn't go down the seductive but damaging path of protectionism", not realising that their largest trading partner has already run gleefully down the path of protectionism and the west has just been too blind to notice.
"We make and manage information." (Score:5, Interesting)
Also known as producing and shuffling paper. :-)
But seriously, I've heard your argument since 1975. "We're losing the low-value grunt work. The high-dollar brain work will still be here."
Except it didn't work out like that. We lost manufacturing. We've also lost research. The simple fact is when you're facing a labor pool of four billion desperate people with little-to-no-civil-rights and the same genetic possibilities as you, you're not going to compete on quality alone.
Your argument -- "They ain't never gunna be as smart as we are" -- has already been put to the test. It failed. The opposing viewpoint -- "It's a race to the bottom" -- has already been proven.
I'm just hoping we can pull up short of impact.
Re:Ping Pong (Score:3, Interesting)
In every Administration there are stories that newspapers sit on for years at a time because the Feds ask them not to publish, and some that never get made public. Then there are the "official" misdeeds we'll never know about thanks to a veil of National Security keeping out the public and the media.
Agreed, but this is a separate issue - there is still no legal action that the government can take to prevent publication, and not much they can do after the fact. The New York Times sat on the NSA warrantless surveilance story for a year because the Bush administration asked them too, not because the secret police held a gun to Bill Keller's head. When they finally published it, the administration and its supporters were livid - I remember seeing many of the more enthusiastic right-wing bloggers demanding treason trials for the reporters and editors involved. Yet no legal action was taken; Bill Keller is still in charge, and James Risen published his book. This is because we have several decades of legal precedent (starting with the Pentagon Papers, if not earlier) that not only is prior restraint unconstitutional, reporters can't be penalized for publishing classified information because they weren't legally bound to protect it in the first place.
The only situations I've seen where the government was allowed to censor third-party publications have been books or articles by former spies, where the appropriate agency (usually the CIA) has redacted some information. I think this is usually ass-covering for the author (and perhaps publisher), since they may be liable for revealing classified secrets that they learned as part of their job.
I certainly agree that our government errs strongly on the side of too much secrecy, but my original point stands - these issues only concern what information the government (and media) is obliged to reveal, not what it can suppress through criminal prosecution.