Word: censorship
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...longer censor the search results on Google.cn - the second leading search engine in the country with the most Internet users in the world - appears to be leading to the demise of its Chinese-language search business. Beijing was never going to negotiate with Google on the issue of censorship - particularly not after the U.S. government hitched its wagon to Google's cause, in the form of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Jan. 21 speech on Internet freedom. In fact, only in the past few days has anyone from the Chinese government even conceded publicly that Beijing was talking...
...Tiananmen Square, 1989," and "Falun Gong" - two hot buttons as far as Beijing is concerned - prompted the usual government-approved pabulum on the subjects. If Microsoft and the others intend to be in China "to stay," as Mundie put it, there is no chance - none - that the censorship issue will change for them going forward...
...Broaching two sensitive issues in such a short time period would inevitably weaken ties, but other issues have contributed. After U.S. Internet giant Google threatened to pull out of China in January, citing Chinese censorship and sophisticated hacking attacks on its infrastructure, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cited China in a speech in support of online freedom. China and Google have held talks recently, and the Financial Times reported on Saturday that the company was "99.9 %" certain to close its google.cn site, which is aimed at Chinese users and censors search returns according to Chinese regulations...
China’s defiance in the face of Google’s threats and Secretary Clinton’s remarks stems from similar sentiments. While the end goal of China’s censorship is probably not as benign as protecting children from molesters and the like, it does serve a purpose within the larger context of effective governing and elevating the quality of life for its massive population. This is no different from United States’ justification of torture in the grander scheme of the “war on terror”. As such, these censorship...
However, respecting China’s censorship laws does not entail agreeing with them; it simply entails an understanding that China is facing tough challenges as it develops in an era of lightning-fast information flow and is dealing with them through the only means it knows how. I fully support Secretary Clinton’s crusade for greater Internet freedom in countries like China, but I would like to see the process carried out in a more sensitive, less accusatory tone. I admit that it is hard to be neutral when human rights are involved, but employing the rhetoric...