China vs Google

Since Google’s discovery a few weeks ago that hackers, likely from the Chinese government, broke into Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists in China and America, Google has threatened to end compliance with government censorship laws and to possibly close shop in China. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, “It’s about our unwillingness to participate in censorship.”

Of course, Schmidt hadn’t publicly expressed this kind of disgust until Google’s reputation as a “secure” company took a hit because of the cyber-invasion. Until two weeks ago, Schmidt had no public qualms about helping present Chinese citizens from finding truthful information about Tiananmen Square or “Tank Man,” except for the following disclaimer at the bottom of the page: “In accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of the search result is not shown.”

Hiding “part” of the uncensored “Tank Man” results would be removing particularly gruesome photos — if any ever existed. Finding something irrelevant about a “Baltimore Colts fan” at the top of the page instead of the notorious image of the defiant Chinese man doing his part to reject totalitarianism is an example of the kind of photo trickery that Stalin would use.

Sergey Brin, the Russian-born co-founder of Google, agonized over complying with China’s censorship when he considered bringing Google to China in 2005. Though Brin and his family — who moved to the U.S. when he was six — had to live with egregious censorship in Soviet Russia, he created Google China because, according to him, “by participating there… [the Chinese people] would get more information, though not quite all of it.”

If Brin really believes that playing into the Communist Party’s hands by giving Chinese citizens enough Internet freedom up to the point that it presents a threat to the power of the government is a good thing for the Chinese, then he hasn’t learned the lesson of Nokia’s deal with in Iranian regime. Nokia installed an electronic surveillance system in Iran that intercepts “questionable” cyber communication to be reviewed by the government. If pressed, Nokia’s CEO Olli Kallasvuo might say, “But if we didn’t help Iran secure the Internet, they wouldn’t supply any Internet to its people, so we are actually spreading freedom.”

There’s some indication that Google’s threats to stop censoring Google.cn may come to fruition, although the chances that Google will entirely stop cooperating with Chinese censorship are dim. Google China generates about $300 million in annual revenue and a departure from China would likely hurt Google’s public stock, largely due to the psychological effect of a massive business leaving a massive economy. From the Communist Party’s perspective, keeping tech powerhouses like Google in China while using them to censor information potentially available to one billion people is perhaps the crucial ingredient in the party’s plan.

The Communists know that corporations — created by capitalists — will advance communist-like censorship as long as censoring will increase profits.

China’s soaring GDP and other macro-indicators are largely results of China’s low-cost business environment that attracts wealth from abroad (1 billion potential consumers have an effect as well). Since China adopted market-based policies, its poverty rate has plummeted and its global competiveness has skyrocketed.

But as the government is the Communist Party of China, it’s possible that its newfound penchant for wealth creation is merely designed to prevent social unrest from developing. People are far more willing to live with blinders on when they can enjoy luxuries that only money can buy. Money that corporations like Google has.

So is Google’s sudden assault of Chinese censorship motivated by profit or by a desire to behave ethically? It’s hard to tell. Publicly admitting that your servers are not secure enough to defend against cyber hackers, even highly trained government ones, is usually not a great business model. But this was going to go public eventually, probably soon after Google broke the news; so concealing it would have been the worst possible play. Also, acting as if concerned with serving the interests of the average citizen, even at the expense of profits, is common business practice aimed at increasing profits.

No one knows what Eric Schmidt’s motivations were behind releasing the news, and it’s entirely possible that Google is willing to sacrifice profits for ethics.

The real story behind this, though, is not just the dynamic that is developing between Google and China. It’s the continuation of the long and dangerous tie between big business and big government. Profit is clearly not inherently good, as liberals often claim conservatives believe. Rather, it is inherently amoral. Pharmaceutical companies create life-saving and pain-relieving drugs because of the hope of massive, well-deserved profits. On the other hand, IBM, driven by profit, helped the Nazis easily document each concentration camp prisoner by their perceived “imperfections”.

And though Google’s business in China is not remotely morally comparable to Ford’s and IBM’s business with Hitler, Western corporations’ compliance with tyrannical Chinese regulations further proves that businesses tend to err on the side of profits and long-term protection that only governments can provide.

Jared Sichel is a junior in Newcomb-Tulane College. He can be reached for comment at jsichel@tulane.edu.