

ChinaGeeks on Google leaving China - IsaacL
http://sun-zoo.com/chinageeks/2010/03/25/dear-new-york-times-wtf/

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IsaacL
I find ChinaGeeks to be one of the best locations to receive a balanced and
informed Western viewpoint on China, and I thought other HN users might find
it worthwhile (considering the amount of comments that China-related articles
get on here). If you're interested in China, browsing through their archive is
worthwhile; they have some great articles on the Internet culture there.

------
xiaoma
This piece was heavy on opinion, but light on research. Contrary to the claims
of the author, the business environment did change between 2006 and when
Google decided to leave. Brin's recent interview covered that exact topic.

Furthermore, this piece missed the point that while Google did block banned
content, it's approach to doing so was very different from that of Baidu.
Google included notices that results were removed and links briefly explaining
why.

> _The rest of the article devolves into an even more ridiculous assertion:
> that Google is somehow innately better at innovating than domestic
> companies, and thus, the internet market will stagnate as domestic companies
> sit around copying each other’s old technologies rather than moving forward.
> Google does have a history of innovation, of course, but are Chinese
> companies really fundamentally incapable of this? I reject that notion as
> stupid — and probably also a bit racist — but I suppose we’ll see for sure
> in the long run._

That idea would be stupid, but it's a strawman. The NYT piece didn't make any
claims or speculation whatsoever on "inherent" or "fundamental" abilities.
What the author _may_ have been getting at was how strongly economic growth is
related to openness, particularly in regards to technology. At the end of the
industrial revolution, China and India represented about 40% of the global
economy, far more than today. Many non-racist people would argue that the
reason Japan and the west did so well last century was the freedom and
incentive to innovate. See this speech by former Mexico Coordinator General of
Economic Policy: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KdOPY1Iqiw#t=18m40s>

Since I regularly read Chinese language media myself, I don't have a strong
interest in sites by foreigners about Chinese current events. However, there
is one site that has always impressed me-- Danwei.org.

