Google: A new approach to China

After discovering a well-organized hacking attempt into some of it’s G-Mail accounts, Google has said it will finally take a new approach to how it deals with China. The latest reports released by the U.S. Economic and Security Review Commission, as well as those by Google, point to a concerted effort by government-employed Chinese operatives to infiltrate the e-mail accounts of dozens of Chinese Human Rights Activists and their supporters in the United States, Europe and China as well as the theft of intellectual property belonging to Google and other U.S. corporations.

I was very unhappy when I heard that, in 2006, Google was going to stop boycotting the Chinese market. I remember feeling upset, thinking that capitalistic ideals had won out against the hope for a definitive change in the human rights policies of China. After all, Google was a long-time hold out before entering the Chinese market. However, Google left us with a glimmer of hope when it said:  “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

The thought was that, by cooperating with China, Google could slowly help crack open the iron doors and lead the way to a more democratic state of affairs. It has started to work elsewhere, even when internet access has been almost entirely shut down. Think of the massive onslaught of communication via Twitter, Facebook and various other clients when Iran was pressing down hard on it’s demonstrators in the wake of its’ latest election. They organized; they fought back through the internet.

But this is different. China has allegedly hired hackers to break into computers in the United States for the sole purpose of outing human rights activists. How has Google responded? It’s probably better if I let them speak for themselves:

We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

That’s right! They are going to attempt to remove the filtering software that has long been placed on Google.cn, even if it results in Google having to exit the Chinese market. While this is not nearly as significant an event as removal of the Berlin Wall, it is, without a doubt, a step toward the best internet equivalent thus far.