This is a contributed article from my friend in Taiwan Bill Stimson. It does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Peking Duck.
China Can Outgoogle Google
by William R. Stimson
What if they gave a dictatorship and nobody came? This is what we’re seeing happen in Iran now, and with Google it’s apparently also beginning in China.
The Chinese authorities dangle profit in front of the greedy eyes of Western firms but then as those firms rush in and struggle to establish themselves in the very different (so-called) “business” climate of China, these same authorities keep changing the rules, demanding a little bit more every few years, altering the structure of the business environment and changing the rules some more, until they themselves are firmly in control of the firms and own the technologies. To China’s leaders it must seem like such a winning game that already they can’t help strutting and posturing about their own superiority as a race, a nation, and a system of “government” that, unlike the liberal democracies of the West, works against the recession.
Only, like the populace of Iran, Google looked the big boys in the face, decided it wasn’t worth playing their cheating game, turned around, and walked out on their party. This is the opposite of the Americans going into Iraq for its oil. This is America coming of age. The greatness of America, whatever superiority it may have, as it turns out, isn’t what so many in the West, or even in China, might suspect. Rather it’s the simple freedom to innovate and to try to be real – it’s the “tangle and bother” freedom that the Chinese leaders now deride for its slow and stumbling economic recovery.
America has what China can’t steal. It can finally produce a company that is true, that places human values above dollars – a company that can win our hearts and so, of course, earn our dollars in a big way.
Google does right to step out of China because by doing so it is preserving its one priceless asset. This is not the secret computer codes the Chinese want to steal. It’s something the Chinese cannot steal from Google or any other company. Legitimate authenticity, genuineness, call it what you will – this is the commodity that will be selling in the marketplace of the future, and that not just America but Taiwan and so many free countries around the world are now perfecting. This is the commodity that will end the destruction of ecosystems, the exploitation of labor forces, the extinction of species, the stealing from future generations, and, yes, that will end poverty too; and overpopulation. A genuine company is one that gives away for free far more than it ever even attempts to sell, it is a company that spins a fortune out of thin air, and it is a company that the China we know today will never understand because it is a company that “does no evil.”
China can have all Google’s secrets, yes. But to get them it’ll have to set free its captive 1.3 billion, let them read and think and write what they want – and let them self-organize as they wish. Only then will the greatness of the Chinese culture and the superiority of its many peoples and inner nations rise up and show the world what can outgoogle Google.
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By stuart
Excellent.
Reaching for twitter as I type …
January 14, 2010 @ 11:47 am | Comment
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By pug_ster
China can have all Google’s secrets, yes. But to get them it’ll have to set free it’s captive 1.3 billion, let them read and think and write what they want – and let them self-organize as they wish. Only then will the greatness of the Chinese culture and the superiority of its many peoples and inner nations rise up and show the world what can outgoogle Google.
What is Bill Stimson smoking? Since when within the last 200 years the West consider Chinese culture superior?
January 14, 2010 @ 12:05 pm | Comment
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By Julian
Inspiring
January 14, 2010 @ 12:05 pm | Comment
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By Peter
This is the commodity that will end the destruction of ecosystems, the exploitation of labor forces, the extinction of species, the stealing from future generations, and, yes, that will end poverty too; and overpopulation.
Overblown, wishful thinking.
January 14, 2010 @ 12:19 pm | Comment
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By pug_ster
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-13/google-china-attacks-presage-battle-with-u-s-to-shape-internet.html
According to the article:
Clinton is scheduled to give a speech on Internet freedom on Jan. 21. Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt was among a group of technology executives who dined with Clinton at the State Department last week to discuss ways to promote democracy and development.
This is not just about Google being the victim of a cyberattack. Cyberattacks are the realities of life. The US government says there are 37,000 attempted breaches in government and private systems in 2007 alone. So a good number of them are probably targeting google. Makes me wonder why Google is crying over spilled milk over this incident when they should be figuring out ways to protect their systems instead. Most companies (except media companies) are pretty much apolitical. Google only shoot themselves in the foot in this incident. Many Chinese netizens are probably thinking of switching gmail, picasa and other google services and other search companies are already smelling blood.
January 14, 2010 @ 1:11 pm | Comment
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By Cypher
Mmm…
An interesting QQ message from a certain IDC:
http://i48.tinypic.com/35l850n.jpg
It reads:
All active forum,blog and other bulletin board service will be taken offline on sight.All client go to http://www.huadunsoft.com/product_download.html to download and install “Huadun”.
An example of the government shift to play “back the scene” after the “lvba” disaster.
And by the way,that huadunsoft’s slogan reads:”No more hard-to-control servers under the sky”.Well,I’m not that good at translation but you get the idea…
January 14, 2010 @ 2:23 pm | Comment
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By Cypher
Sorry Richard,guess I commented on the wrong page.
January 14, 2010 @ 2:24 pm | Comment
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By Yu'er
Also read this:
昨日内地网民一度可使用 Google.cn搜寻得到大量在内地属政治敏感词汇如「达赖喇嘛」「法轮功」等，用图片搜寻「六四天安门」则有大量血腥镇压图片出现。以往若以这些字词搜寻，则会显示「据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示」的通告，一时间令「天安门」成为最热门的搜寻关键字。
内地搜寻器百度及腾讯旗下的搜寻器「搜搜」亦同时出现大量未经过滤的内容，有业内人士指出，内地搜寻器长期盗链Google搜寻结果，仅是自己重新排序。但至昨日傍晚6时许，包括Google.cn在内的全部搜寻器又回复旧貌。
January 14, 2010 @ 2:28 pm | Comment
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By wk
American red guard.
If you are so confident that China can’t steal the genuineness, you shouldn’t support the move by Google. Chinese can only steal or copy, so will never produce products as good as Google’s, Google will eventually win out in China.
January 14, 2010 @ 4:36 pm | Comment
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By William R. Stimson
In answer to wk:
“American red guard”: No. American Cultural Creative: Yes.
“Chinese can only steal or copy”: Wrong. Give them the freedom they deserve to know whatever they want and organize this knowledge and act upon it in whatever ways they see fit, and they can produce products as good as Google’s or anybody’s.
“Google will eventually win out in China”: Wrong again. If Google stays in China it won’t be Google anymore and so whatever market share it eventually captures won’t matter. It will lose what makes it special and what makes it matter so much to the world. We’re dealing with a new form of organization that’s not the old capitalism anymore and that’s not communism either — but something in between, just in the right place in between. It makes money by helping people in the ways it knows how. This is something good. It doesn’t need to be squashed by the sick Chinese environment, but deserves to prevail, spread, and be copied everywhere. It’s got to get out of China to do this.
January 14, 2010 @ 7:08 pm | Comment
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By Yu'er
For Mike:
“昨日内地网民一度可使用 Google.cn搜寻得到大量在内地属政治敏感词汇如「达赖喇嘛」「法轮功」等，用图片搜寻「六四天安门」则有大量血腥镇压图片出现。以往若以这些字词搜寻，则会显示「据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示」的通告，一时间令「天安门」成为最热门的搜寻关键字。
内地搜寻器百度及腾讯旗下的搜寻器「搜搜」亦同时出现大量未经过滤的内容，有业内人士指出，内地搜寻器长期盗链Google搜寻结果，仅是自己重新排序。但至昨日傍晚6时许，包括Google.cn在内的全部搜寻器又回复旧貌。”
Rough translation:
For a while yesterday, mainland Chinese could use google.cn to get search results on many sensative words such as “Dalai Lama”, “Fa-lun-gong”, image search of “June 4th tiananmen” yielded tons of bloody photos of the massacre. In the past, the search results of these would lead to something like “according to local laws and regulations, some search results cannot be displayed”. Thus for a while “tiananmen” became the hottest search keyword.
Mainland search engines such as baidu and qq’s soso also showed lots of unfiltered materials around the same time. Someone in the business said that mainland search engines have been pirate linking google search results for a long time, just re-ranking them. But by 6pm yesterday, all search engines, including google.cn, were back to usual.
January 14, 2010 @ 11:56 pm | Comment
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By uk visa lawyer
Hi Bill
This is one of the best posts I’ve read on the subject – superb, thank you.
January 15, 2010 @ 12:05 am | Comment
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By Mike Goldthorpe
Cheers Yu’er
Funnily enough, when my sister in law came over to help look after the new baby, she spent quite a bit of time looking at the same stuff. Tiananmen, Khadeer, Dalai Lama, etc, etc.
I don’t think it changed her mind any about things but she wanted to see what the fuss was about (as I understood it).
That movie about Khadeer came on TV here – the one “they” tried to “ban” Melbourne from showing. Sister in law couldn’t watch it – just made her angry.
Back to scheduled program now…
January 15, 2010 @ 4:48 am | Comment
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By Yu'er
Well, if all she read was Chinese, she might not get an objective view. A lot of Chinese media in the US is under the influence (or worse, “leadership”) of the department of propaganda — but that is another topic.
Of course, it’s also difficult to change someone’s mind if they already made up theirs …
January 15, 2010 @ 1:49 pm | Comment
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By Mike Goldthorpe
Yu’er, t’was the BBC Chinese service. Dad-in-law likes it too when he’s here.
But, as you say, when your mind’s made up, up it is made.
I still get a bit prickly when Britain is run down in the press and by people (and I moved to a country where Brits are dismissively called Poms…) so I can fully understand the feeling. Odd, really…that one can feel so much despite the evidence being served on a plate.
Turkestani site she was reading was this http://www.uygur.org/ – Chinese version under construction now. Odd…worked when she was here. But hey, one set of propaganda against another…what can one believe?
January 15, 2010 @ 5:06 pm | Comment
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By stuart
“Of course, it’s also difficult to change someone’s mind if they already made up theirs …”
And even more difficult if their mind was made up on their behalf.
January 15, 2010 @ 7:56 pm | Comment
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By Danfried
Having a free press is better than not having a free press, but by itself a free press is no guarantee of an informed citizenry.
In 2006 — three years after the invasion of Iraq, and two years after the US Iraq Study Group concluded that Saddam had complied with the UN — HALF of Americans still believed that Iraq had WMDs at the time of the invasion. And don’t get me started on global warming — if you bring that up in any English language forum, some American is guaranteed to pop up and say it’s all a conspiracy by Big Science…
January 15, 2010 @ 9:58 pm | Comment
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By merp
And even more difficult if their mind was made up on their behalf.
Agreed. It’s very hard to wash out the teat of racial, religious, cultural and political propaganda every single Westerner (and those millions of minorities sadly still under their rule, in their own countries such as the Navajo Nation) suckles from cradle to grave.
@Danfried
Yep. Great points. The thing is America’s press is not free. It’s bought and paid for by interests groups who are not concerned with the well-being of the average peon. They know what buttons to push- emotional, racial, religious- to get the Conservative Death Machine running.
1.3 million dead Iraqis and counting.
January 16, 2010 @ 7:09 am | Comment
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By merp
on second glance wash should probably be replaced with push 😉
January 16, 2010 @ 7:10 am | Comment
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By Mike Goldthorpe
Merp – most of them Iraqis killed by their own countrymen. America and allies have killed very few. The conservatives, whatever their faults, have nothing on jihadis.
January 16, 2010 @ 3:34 pm | Comment
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By merp
Ah, killed by their own countrymen, things like the Holocaust and Great Leap Forward sound that much better now.
January 17, 2010 @ 9:49 am | Comment
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By Yu'er
Mike,
I see. “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”
Stuart,
Yes the passive tense is getting popular in China, as in “was suicided” (被自杀）。
January 17, 2010 @ 1:20 pm | Comment
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By Zictor
Yu’er this use of the passive was very common in Brazil between 1964 and 1985.
Lots of political prisoners “were suicided” as in “hanging themselves” in impossible circumstances.
Google Vladimir Herzog to know what I mean.
January 17, 2010 @ 2:43 pm | Comment
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By XiaoFeng
Hi, I’ve never commented on this blog before, but I always liked reading it because I thought it was pretty objective. I figured a Westerner who can appreciate Chinese culture would probably provide the most unbiased news about the country that I was born in (that’s why I love reading articles by James Fallows)
However, I was very surprised by this post. Specifically this line: “China can have all Google’s secrets, yes. But to get them it’ll have to set free its captive 1.3 billion”
I am surprised everyone is praising this post so much. Am I really the only one who feels this is a bit too much? I’m trying to be as objective as possible, and not let my feelings get to me as a Chinese American, but “captive 1.3 billion”? I have many extended family members living there over in Sichuan right now who would object to be labeled as “captive” citizens. Four of them are my cousins whom I grew up with in very poor conditions, and have visited every other summer since the 7th grade. I may be the luckiest one to have come to the States because I had hard working parents who got into a university here as postdocs, but whenever I go back there and see their families getting richer and enjoying more things in life and being carefree, becoming more and more essentially like me… the more I don’t understand why so many outside the country insist on trying to label it as such a backward hellhole.
Maybe I’m overreacting. Or maybe the rest of my family over there, every single one of them (including my uncle’s family on my dad’s side, who grew up as farmers in a pretty undeveloped village called Naxi), just happen to coincidentally be the lucky ones that are actually satisfied with their lives and are looking forward to the future… since everyone else in that country must be miserable and suppressed.
Sorry, I know that’s not the point of the article. I know China is not that free, and I know the government probably tries to use dirty tactics to steal from American companies. It’s just the way it is written makes it hard sometimes to focus on its content. I just find it really hard to take an article seriously, that cannot resist putting the word “evil” and the Chinese government in the same sentence, and labeling Chinese people as “captive”, or suggest that a company can be benevolent and actually place “human values above dollars” (I don’t believe any company in the world can actually be truly benevolent).
January 18, 2010 @ 12:27 pm | Comment
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By XiaoFeng
(Just took a step back, and realized the Evil statement was really just a reference to Google’s mantra. So I guess it’s not as bad)
January 18, 2010 @ 12:36 pm | Comment
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By Yu'er
Thanks Zictor, I’ll check it out.
January 18, 2010 @ 1:02 pm | Comment