

Chinese entrepreneurs, investors on Google: ‘Just quit. We don’t care.’ - ilamont
http://digital.venturebeat.com/2010/01/14/google-china/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Venturebeat+%28VentureBeat%29

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jsm386
I think this is pretty predictable. There was an opinion piece by a Fellow at
the Open Society Institute in the WSJ yesterday that explained this mindset.
The entire piece is worth a read, but here are the two relevant excerpts:

"One night in the mid-1990s when I was working as a journalist in Beijing, I
went out to dinner with some Chinese friends. I had just finished reading a
book called "The File" by the British historian Timothy Garton Ash. It's about
what happened in East Berlin after the Berlin Wall came down and everybody
could see the files the Stasi had been keeping all those years. People
discovered who had been ratting on whom-in some cases neighbors and co-
workers, but also lovers, spouses and even children. After I described the
book to my Chinese dinner companions-a hip and artsy intellectual crowd-one
friend declared: "Some day the same thing will happen in China, then I'll know
who my real friends are."

The table went silent.

...

I do believe, however, that in my lifetime the Chinese people may learn more
about some of the conversations that have taken place over the past decade
between Internet company executives and Chinese authorities. When that
happens, they will know who sold them out and who was most eager to help the
Chinese Communist Party in building a blinkered cocoon of disinformation
around their lives-and in some cases deaths.

This censored environment makes it easier for the Chinese government to lie to
its people, steal from them, turn a blind eye when they are poisoned with
tainted foodstuffs, and cover up their children's deaths due to substandard
building codes. It is a constant struggle, and sometimes literally a crime,
for people to share information about such matters or to use the Internet to
mobilize against corruption and malfeasance.

That is the information environment that China's business elites, many of whom
have gotten rich running Internet and telecommunications companies, are
responsible for helping to build and maintain. For now they are national
heroes, having made great (and lucrative) efforts on behalf of China's
economic growth and global competitiveness, making China a force to be
reckoned with on the global stage. But if history takes some unexpected turns-
and that's the one thing you can count on Chinese history doing-it won't
always be on their side."

Source:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870436200457500...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704362004575000442815795122.html)

~~~
jerf
_'After I described the book to my Chinese dinner companions-a hip and artsy
intellectual crowd-one friend declared: "Some day the same thing will happen
in China, then I'll know who my real friends are."'_

Sometimes I think people misunderstand why police states are evil. It isn't
that it oppresses this group, or that group. It oppresses _everyone_. From the
lowliest peon to the person putatively at the top, everyone must watch their
step. Some people seem anxious to set up police states because they think they
will be in the oppressor class rather than the oppressed class, but there
isn't an oppressor class, just varying degrees of oppression. (I don't mean
some people here on HN, I just mean in general.) As wonder as it may seem to
be Chavez or Kim Jong-il, they find their hands pretty tied by the system
they've created too.

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JunkDNA
"I also talked to a few Chinese expatriates who had left the country for the
U.S. and met with the delegation. They only wanted to publish their first
names because they were worried about making critical comments of the
government publicly."

This cuts to the heart of the problem right here. We often take it for granted
in the US (and in other similarly structured socieities as well) that we can
be critical of the government and not face retribution. Heck, there are people
who make entire careers out of it. In open societies we have vigorous debates
about how to structure rules and regulations (i.e. "net neutrality"). Markets
require that sort of public debate so investors and companies can make
informed decisions.

~~~
cia_plant
It is often taken for granted that you can seriously challenge the US
government without any retribution, by people who have never seriously
challenged the US government.

~~~
JunkDNA
I'm sorry, but every day hundreds of newspapers and magazines devote pages and
pages to honest critique of the government. Add to that all the commentary on
television, radio, and the net. The vast majority of those individuals partake
in the discussion without the slightest bit of fear that a bunch of thugs are
going to put them in prison for years. I'm not saying abuses don't happen. But
the government is not formally organized to go after them.

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varjag
Quite predictable. What should've one expected from them, support for Google's
move and criticism of Chinese government? These people have their lives,
families and business there, on the mercy of officials.

The last section on opinions from Chinese entrepreneurs who moved out to the
States is also telling..

~~~
garply
I think you should also consider the possibility that the Chinese
entrepreneurs are speaking sincerely - while I know many natives (particularly
among the white collar workers) here in China who find the gov't obnoxious, I
also know many educated, intelligent people who would agree with these
statements.

And when you consider the statements of Chinese expats about the Chinese
government - you have to expect an anti-Chinese government bias (merited by
the government or not) in their views. I mean, they left China for a reason.
It's a little like asking political exiles from Iran whether they like the
Iranian government or not.

In short, I don't think it's reasonable to completely toss out the statements
of the people who haven't left China and focus only on the statements of the
self-selecting population who have made a concerted effort to leave.

~~~
lmkg
You're quite right that they could be telling their honest opinion. The point
is, we can't tell anything about their honest opinions based on what they say.
If they think X, they say X. If they think ~X, they say X. Therefore, when
they say X, we gain no information.

~~~
potatolicious
Being Chinese (Taiwanese to be specific) myself and knowing many Chinese
people, I have to say it's more likely they are speaking the truth than not.

This comes down to a matter of national pride: most Chinese care deeply about
the pride of their nation, and the new generation (the ones that grew up under
the current regime) seem to be incapable of separating the Chinese identity
from the Chinese Communist Party.

So, when criticism falls upon the government, even perfectly valid criticism,
there is a perceived need to defend the government - since in their mind the
government _is_ the people. This false association causes a lot of problems,
since it removes rational discourse.

The new generation of Chinese have an immense amount of national pride, and
IMHO this is going to be the biggest problem we face in the future.

------
Pahalial
I found it telling that not a single one of them talked about the coordinated
attacks - at most they mentioned the censorship.

~~~
sgk284
You'll find that not a single Chinese media/news source mentions the attacks.
Most Chinese people don't even know they happened, the only side of the story
they are aware of is that "Google doesn't want to follow our laws."

The other funny thing is that when censorship is mentioned, everywhere I've
seen it elaborated on in Chinese media simply says something to the effect of
"Without the Chinese government stepping in, Google returned too much
pornography with search results." and never dares to imply that the Chinese
government is hiding information or manipulating what they are allowed to
know.

It's really unfortunate... many Chinese have too much blind faith in their
government (not that it's their fault, everything about the culture encourages
it).

------
rfreytag
Google thus announces publicly that its results are not filtered. If you are
in the largest growth market (China) and can get to Google (you can somehow)
then you will get authoritative results.

Brilliant move. Ethics are good business. Should have done it sooner.

------
marze
'officials brushed off Google’s threat, saying that “effective guidance of
public opinion on the Internet is an important way of protecting the security
of online information” '

Classic doublespeak.

------
huherto
Not entirely on topic and kind of obvious. But, China has made great advances
on economic growth. But they have a huge debt on social freedoms. We will see
in the next years how much economic growth can be sustained in that
environment. I am curious if China will opt to open up, may be slowing growth
in the short term but giving viability on the long term. Or if they will
insist on the current model. I don't think there is a single instance on the
history of humanity of a country to become fully developed without the
corresponding social freedoms. May be China will be the first case.

