My friend, David Henderson, has a very interesting take on the China versus Google story. Without necessarily defending China, he bucks the trend of canonizing Google, and its supporters in the State Department, for its heroic stand.
On one hand, I’m not pleased that China censors news and information flow into and out across its borders. But, so does Iran and a number of other countries. Even India imposes levels of censorship. But … it is their country, and it’s up to the peoples of those respective countries to strive for change. Ms. Clinton has no business playing Kojak for U.S. special interests that want to dominate online marketing in foreign countries.
He makes the point that Google’s motives may not be entirely pure and, in fact, could be influenced by commercial interests more than principle. For my part, I think it’s a good thing that Google is rattling the cage in China. I suspect both sides of this argument are influenced by money, not principle. But China has shown a tendency to adopt the “values” of transparency and free speech only when its economic interests forces it to. To the extent Google is successful in applying such pressure, I wish them well, even if they’re only in it for the money.
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