The Chinese Internet Century. Few minds in China are likely to change on account of Hillary Clinton's call for "a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. " Last week, the U.S. secretary of state laid out two competing visions of the Internet: one open and global, the other highly controlled and often used for repression.
Given that China is rapidly trending toward the latter, it's time to start asking: What might a permanently fractured Web look like? Clinton's speech was not utopian. Her remarks were fairly measured about the potential political impact of network technologies. These are noble aspirations, but they will have a very limited impact on China. The fact is that the majority of Chinese simply don't care, giving the government even less incentive to change its ways. While the hacking of the accounts of individual human rights activists has garnered the most public attention, the primary objective of the cyberattack on Google was probably intellectual property theft. China's Internet Imperils Corrupt Officials, but Not Regime. Just Google “China” » Public Diplomacy. The other day The Wall Street Journal ran a good summary of China’s conflict with Google. It looks like we’re in for another international war of words but, this time, it won’t be a classic Cold War confrontation over political-military issues, but rather a war of words over words — censorship, to be precise.
China’s government mouthpiece, The People’s Daily, fired the latest salvo yesterday: …U.S. media have gone all out to “promote” the “Google issue” and American politicians repeated great “noises” in accusation of China’s internet management policies and insinuate the nation’s restriction on “internet freedom”…These words and deeds, which have taken no heed of reality, are definitely aimed to impair or tarnish China’s imageIt is not difficult, however, to see the shadow of the US government behind the highly politicized “Google” case. Shortly after Google threatened to quit [China], Secretary of State Hillary R. Google vs. China - washingtonpost.com.
GOOD FOR Google. The company's decision to stop censoring its Chinese search engine is more likely to mean the end of its China-based service than a breakdown of Beijing's political firewall. But more important than the question of whether Google.cn survives is the larger issue that Google has now raised for other Western companies and democratic governments -- which is whether China's gross and growing abuse of the Internet should be quietly tolerated or actively resisted.
Google cited a major instance of that abuse in announcing its policy change: "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack" on Google and more than 20 other large companies aimed at stealing software code. "A primary goal of the attackers," Google said, was breaking into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. This is shocking but unsurprising. Google's action also challenges the Obama administration, which has been slow to embrace the cause of Internet freedom.
Google's Act Of War Against China - Forbes.com. Google-China: Beijin accused of cyber attacks by company - une v.