Dear Google:
Today you took a poignant stand against Beijing. To you, it was a principled stand based upon your belief that the Internet should be free of government control. Since you have been silent on the entire dispute after you initially howled at the moon earlier in the year, it is difficult to state conclusively what your intentions are.
No doubt though, you have the full support of Washington, human rights activists around the world, and those who fervently hate China. Could the next step be a Congressional Medal of Honor for spitting in Beijing’s face?
When you entered the market in China, no doubt your primary intentions were to make a buck or two. Nothing wrong with that. You state that you still want to keep that option despite you no longer being willing to play by all the rules that you agreed to play by when you entered the Chinese market.
Over the years, my momma taught me many lessons. One of those lessons was that when I was a guest in someone else’s home, I had to abide by their rules without question. If I couldn’t do that, I was to pick up all my toys and get out of that house. As I got older, and began traveling around the country and the world, I was reminded of that lesson many times. American arrogance, and the insistence that others adopt what American’s think and believe has no place when visiting another person’s home or country.
What you discovered after howling at the Chinese moon was that basically, the majority of the Chinese people do not really care much about the censorship issue. Oh, a few do; no doubt about that. However, those few dissidents do not speak for the majority of the Chinese people. What that means is that you are pandering to a small minority in China and a lot of other people outside of China, that most Chinese people wish would keep their noses out of China’s internal affairs.
Now, personally, I don’t care what your dispute is with Beijing. I believe that it shows a tremendous lack of understanding of China and Chinese culture. The fact remains that you came to China agreeing to play the game according to their rules. You are now blatantly breaking those rules, and in the process potentially causing problems for others.
Prior to this morning, I was able to access Google.com and get your servers in the US. I could access Google in England. I could access Google anyplace in the world. Now, in your great act of defiance against Beijing, you are now forcing me to use only Google in Hong Kong. I cannot access any other Google portal in the world. So, in effect, you are censoring me.
Why you are blocking anyone from accessing any of your other servers around the world is a mystery. It hardly makes sense. If you are so opposed to censorship, it would seem to be prudent to allow your site visitors access to all of your products.
Of course, there is some hypocrisy in your actions. You say that you do not want to play by Beijing’s rules. Yet, you still want the Chinese to support you and your business ventures in China. You are more than willing to take money from the presumed (in your belief) oppressed people of China, but not play by the established rules.
We do not know how Beijing is going to respond to your defiant act of moving your server to Hong Kong, simply because your search results are not censored there. The most talked about option is for Beijing to simply block access to all Google products. That will adversely affect many people who have come to rely on Google. What they will do remains to be seen.
No doubt, you are hoping that I will be angry with Beijing if my access is further cut or reduced. No doubt, you hope that this will help ferment discord among the Chinese people as well as ex-pats in China to begin attaining the long dreamed of American goal of bringing democracy to China. You are living in a fantasy world if that is what you are hoping for.
In China you will be criticized for your arrogance for not playing by the rules that you agreed to play by in the beginning. You will be criticized for your arrogance in attempting to interfere in the internal policies of China. Of course, by wanting to stay in China for other business interests you demonstrate that your dedication to capitalism is much stronger than your dedication to so called “human rights.” That is called hypocrisy.
