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>Why should there be a different standard for Google and other tech companies to not expand into China. This exactly. I would even make a stronger case. It's

>Why should there be a different standard for Google and other tech companies to not expand into China. This exactly. I would even make a stronger case. It's not fair to expect a technology company to fight a major world economic power. This is a failure of US and EU governments. They should pressure China to liberalize their government and provide a level economic playing field (it is insane what China gets away with with respect to the roadblocks it places on Western companies to do business there).

Alir3z4 8y ago
Neither US or EU are the world police. They have no rights and should not have any to pressure any country to push their own idea of how things should work in another country, just like how China and others don't demand such and even if they do that doesn't make it less wrong.
- cazum 8y ago
  this is a weak argument, as it can be made for literally any situation. Israel massacring Palestinians? Hey man, they can do whatever they want, we don't have any right to tell them not to and it doesn't make what they're doing any less wrong!
  - it_learnses 8y ago
    You mean Palestinians trying to massacre as many jews as possible and Israel stopping them due to their superior defense capabilities.
- manigandham 8y ago
  They actually are the world police. Sovereignty, nations, and conflict between them are part of human nature.
- chillacy 8y ago
  If government can’t produce collective action, then market forces will never overcome the prisoners dilemma on its own.
- mywacaday 8y ago
  Agree they are not the world police but for EU/US citizens they are our government and should reflect our views and morals. Do we believe in censorship? Do we believe in borderline cheap labor? I don't have the answers but there are hard questions there, not just for our governments but for us as voters.
- Mediterraneo10 8y ago
  > They have no rights and should not have any to pressure any country to push their own idea of how things should work in another country To believe that China does not attempt to influence other countries is naive. China puts a great deal of pressure on other nations with regard to things like recognition of Taiwan or inviting the Dalai Lama to speak. These have occasionally been in the news over the last few years, e.g. China’s retaliatory measures against Norway for Liu Xiabo winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but in fact they go back decades – when Michelangelo Antonioni was showing his documentary film Chung Kuo around in the early 1970s, in European countries where a screening was organized the local Chinese embassy would raise scandal.
  - neom 8y ago
    China certainly has a very strong view on the make-up of the region, much is historical, some of it fair. However, we don't see them going around converting everyone to communism. In fact, even all the investment they are doing in Africa right now, very little of the social aspects of china are being exported. Xi Jinping has always maintained: china is not for export.
    - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
      > In fact, even all the investment they are doing in Africa right now, very little of the social aspects of china are being exported. China has repeatedly lobbied, with some success now, for East African nations to adopt its "Great Firewall" network infrastructure.
  - vermontdevil 8y ago
    Don't forget the pressure on Marriott to fire an employee for clicking 'like' on a Tibet-related topic. And for pressuring airlines not to list Taiwan on their websites for booking.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Neither US or EU are the world police If an American pays a Chinese businessman in China a bribe, that's an FCPA [1] violation. If the U.S. government wanted to prevent American technology companies from helping China's dictator build a modern dystopia, it would have precedent. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act
- ckocagil 8y ago
  The US and EU have (relatively) free markets where Chinese companies can compete. But not the other way. They can simply stop trading with China unless China opens their market as well.
- simias 8y ago
  I think that point would have some merit if US, EU and China worked completely in isolation at every level. Let everybody sort their mess like they want. But clearly that's not the case, China's economy is very tightly linked to ours, as such the way we trade with them influences their internal politics. When a US or EU company moves production to China it's not politically neutral, this company implicitly endorses the Chinese political system. As such I don't see why we couldn't regulate these things to suit our principles and interests. It's not about saying "stop censoring the internet or we'll nuke you", it's about saying "if you want to do business with us we demand that you meet these standards, otherwise no biggy, we'll just go elsewhere." And China does attempt to do the same thing, for instance in many African countries. It's less obvious because they're still ramping up their diplomacy, US and EU have a huge headstart there.
- MarkMc 8y ago
  Would you apply the same policy to countries with worse human-rights violations, like North Korea?
mocae 8y ago
You make it look like google would starve without China. Like they have to go there and participate. Shifting the blame for your lack of ethics onto some government is ridiculous in this context. My god...where is your shame?
- macspoofing 8y ago
  >My god...where is your shame? Do you have no sense of your own hypocrisy? I am certain you have 0 qualms in using and buying Chinese manufactured products, or buying services and products from companies that operate in China. And yet here we are with you lecturing from your soapbox on who should be or shouldn't be ashamed of their actions. Look to yourself first before moralizing at others.
  - mocae 8y ago
    There is a difference between not having a choice and openly advertising and justifying unethical behavior. The fact that this is the only sentence you've touched speaks for itself.
    - macspoofing 8y ago
      >There is a difference between not having a choice You have no choice? >and justifying unethical behavior. I get it. It's not unethical when you engage in commerce with a regime you find unethical, or when you buy from all the other companies that manufacture their goods in China ... but it's unethical if Google doesn't want to ignore 1.4 billion people? >The fact that this is the only sentence you've touched speaks for itself. As opposed to the other three snide and arrogant sentences? If you'd like a good-faith discussion please lead by example.
      - xvector 8y ago
        > It's not unethical when you engage in commerce with a regime you find unethical or when you buy from all the other companies that manufacture their goods in China Who says it's not unethical? Why are you putting words in peoples' mouths? On one hand you talk about having a good-faith discussion but then you go ahead and base your argument off of words you've put in someone else's mouth. > but it's unethical if Google doesn't want to ignore 1.4 billion people? Most people find corruption of data far worse than the absence of data. I'd rather not be told anything than be told a lie.
giantsloth 8y ago
You’re an immoral and evil person. Anyone who makes excuses for the powerful restricting the rights of people with limited power is a horrible human being. You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself.
- dang 8y ago
  We've banned this account for egregiously violating the site guidelines with this comment and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661668. You can't post this way, regardless of how right you are or feel. We all know what the online shaming culture leads to, and we don't want that here. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. Those are at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
baybal2 8y ago
What people here don't understand is that the talk about censorship is of less than secondary importance there. China's priority here is totally not to censor them, it is to conduct the "handshaking ritual" and have them becoming subject under China's "law." A "blood pack" - making them partners in crime. The same was with Yahoo. They came to China talking only about "search," but got asked about "personal data of all China's opposition members residing in US." Not only they gave everything to China, but put extreme effort to cover their "special relationship" with China's ministry of interior. In this light, please take a look at very, very close relationship Google tried to establish with Russian government in period of 2005-2010. We are talking about nothing less than first person accounts of people involved certifying that Google was sending all kinds of "consultants" to Russian political establishment, training them in online campaigning. Simultaneously, pages of Russian political opposition did disappear in Google's search. In light of recent events, this should be subject to much scrutiny. P.S. : Additional comment on Google. At some moment they snapped after all. They closed their Russian development centre, and evacuated key personnel to Switzerland in unprecedented visa deal with government of Zurich. P.P.S. : On person whom Sundar Pichay was meeting. I read name Wang Huning in the article, and instantly I felt that something "clicked." The name was familiar. Wang Huning is the man who is the real propaganda chief in the communist party. To know more of his view of USA, please read his work titled "America against America." I will not be surprised at all if he is the man entrusted with running their stratagems targeting USA.
- cryoshon 8y ago
  very interesting. can you provide me with some sources to learn more? this is potentially the corruption story of the century
  - baybal2 8y ago
    >very interesting. can you provide me with some sources to learn more? There was a minor intern in Russian presidential administration. Nicknamed "rLode" in the Internets. I happened to knew him as I attended language courses ran by high school he was attending. He held his home page there "http://rlode.narod.ru/main.html" http://rlode.narod.ru/main.html" a man of unconcealed, borderline rabid views on social class. If you ever unearth an archived version of the page, I guarantee you will have some fun time reading it. If you dig further, finding his offline contacts are not hard. Second was a Far Eastern strongman nicknamed "Twix" or "Nuts," man running arms trade in the Far East. How he came upon the info, I didn't know. Just assume that being a "big man" in Russia involves having lots of ears. I think you still can find him making appearances online on Russian .onion arms sales sites under different Japanese cartoons themed pseudonyms. As for people of Google's side, ask any man relocated from Moscow to Zurich. Few people I knew there voiced their extreme surprise with their relocation coming unannounced, and being done with near military level of coordination. Officials were an everyday sight in their office on Balchug street. Just the fact that their office was on an island just a river across from Kremlin tells a lot. Nobody pays a ennormous premium to have office in this special place without having "being close to Kremlin" factor in mind. On Wang, I once read the very few English translation of 半月谈 with some excerpts from his works. I never read the complete book. But the general theme is him telling party members to not to fear the USA as it is a frustrated, insecure, diseased society - something that has not to be feared, but taken advantage of. His main discontent with USA is it spreading that "plague" around the world. Following, it is CCPs role as "a global messiah" (oh my....) to rectify that, showing world "a different vision of a successful state system."
pytyper2 8y ago
Do you remember the "Don't Be Evil" campaign? Google literally rose to prominence with this as their slogan. I would expect a company whose slogan is "Don't Be Evil" to completely shun a country who wants censored search.
- darepublic 8y ago
  I thought Google performed censorship in North America too. After Trump's election people were crying for more censorship on facebook and Google.
  - pytyper2 8y ago
    I think they censor everywhere to a certain extent, this seems more like a concerted effort along the lines of, "what are we going to allow them to view" and not "should we remove the child porn links and isis videos and pirated movie links now that we know about them"
- gt_ 8y ago
  You would? Google is private company. If you want a powerful entity to live up to your standards, you should look into creating a government. I recommend a democracy; and hold your neighbors accountable for treating it as their own. Together, you can eventually build something to be proud of. It will probably never be perfect, but it will be yours for as long as you take care of it.
  - pytyper2 8y ago
    It was their standard, Eric Schmidt stood on many stages and said the same. Google being a private company has no bearing on my previous comment. Private companies don't have to be amoral. A much more capitalistic move would be to use their information and computation power to devalue the Yuan and acquire large swathes of the now defunct China and rename it Google. Now, not only can you search Google you can go to Google. This would be much more valuable than some pleb ad revenue.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
nailer 8y ago
Why not both? - American companies stop facilitating totalitarian regimes - World governments also prompt totalitarian regimes to move towards democracy
- pravbeatle 8y ago
  That's a naive and simplistic view of the world. I grew up in the Middle East and really believed they needed some democracy. In reality, moving to Democracy would result in more radicalization and instability and not less. Without going into a long rant, there are toxic forces within many countries that would take their country on a profoundly bad route, by any universal standard, if Democracy were forced upon them.
- nailer 8y ago
  I'd like to reply to pravebeatle anyway: I disagree with them, but they're polite and follow the HN guidelines, and their reply doesn't deserve to be flagged. I know what you're saying - there's a lot of instability in the world and sometimes people make very poor choices - but democracy is a way to better handle the turbulence. In essence, it gives us the ability to handle the coup that occurs every few years in unstable environments with less bloodshed - rather than the military taking control and ousting a leader, and a bunch of people dying or being imprisoned, another party takes over at the ballot box. The newly elected ruler might be a really bad choice, but it's the people's perjorative to choose their leaders and it's a much better alternative than another coup.
- gt_ 8y ago
  > Why not both? By definition, “companies” are incentivized to prioritize capital pursuit over moral pursuit. It’s actually the most fundamental part of the whole concept. Many democratic governments in the world, and particularly the most wealthy and powerful ones, are run by people who are (to a large unmeasurable extent) incentivized to do what companies want them to do. This is not a fundamental concept of a democratic government, but as long as the electorate fails to take responsibility for their own government’s behavior, the incentives remain in the company’s favor, which doesn’t make a very good case for democracy. Democracy is a very slippery concept. America, for example, is well understood to not be a democracy, but it’s people seem to have convinced themselves it is. These kinds of miscalculations are really at the root of “why not”.
StreamBright 8y ago
And why should they do that? What was the last time Western interventionism brought any good for the world? Who are the US and EU representing to tell other countries how to live their lives??
- gt_ 8y ago
  Right. If the US is representing anybody, it’s Google. For the Americans who want your government to represent you, you’ve got some work to do. Most Americans I know speak of their government as though it were just some poorly run business that somebody else is responsible for. Get your own house in order before you criticize others peoples’.
  - barnesto 8y ago
    get out of your echo chamber and speak to more Americans
    - ionised 8y ago
      He's on HN. It's an American-centric site.
- sykhic 8y ago
  The Korean War ended up benefitting South Korea in the sense that they didn’t up like North Korea. The free trade agreements have largely been responsible for large numbers of the world's population improving their living standard. There are other examples of intervention being good. Of course there are lots of examples of intervention being bad. There is nothing special about Western intervention vs. intervention by other regional powers. Nations with power rarely use it for the well being of the world. But shouldn’t one strive to have governments do what you consider to be right?
  - knuththetruth 8y ago
    >The Korean War ended up benefitting South Korea in the sense that they didn’t up like North Korea This is an incorrect understanding of Korean history. US anti-communist policy played no small part in creating North Korea in the first place. In the postwar period, US support for the right-wing dictator Syngman Rhee, who murdered tens of thousands of Korean citizens he suspected were his political opponents, empowered and drew popular support to Kim Il-Sung. Sung was further bolstered by the US giving favored status to Japan over Korea, forcing them, for example, to purchase goods and expertise from their brutal, former colonial rulers. With this state of affairs, Sung, a former anti-Japanese resistance fighter, was successful in persuading many that that the US-backed rule of Rhee was just an extension of the pre-War colonial rule, ultimately devolving into the never-ending civil war we have today. This in no way benefitted the south, but instead has been a nearly 70 year long drag on their economy, as well as their development into a liberal democracy (which really didn’t happen until a popular revolt in the 80s because the continued US to provide financing and support to authoritarian rulers in the south).
mtgx 8y ago
> It's not fair to expect a technology company to fight a major world economic power. This is a failure of US and EU governments. Okay, so if the US and EU governments would announce tomorrow that they will start a trade war with China and stop US/EU companies from trading with China unless China immediately stops all censorship/human rights abuses, would Google/other tech companies go along with that, or will they lobby against that move? The tech companies are not as innocent or blameless as you portray them to be.
panarky 8y ago
> It's not fair to expect a technology company to fight a major world economic power Google fights major world powers every day [1, 2]. And Google doesn't have to fight to force the Chinese government to stop censoring their citizens. Google can simply choose not to partner with repressive regimes in enabling and legitimizing censorship and mass surveillance. [1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-encrypts-data-amid-backlash-against-nsa-spying/2013/09/06/9acc3c20-1722-11e3-a2ec-b47e45e6f8ef_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-en...
- macspoofing 8y ago
  >Google fights major world powers every day That's right, if by 'fight' you mean following rules laid out in countries that it operates in. If the rules are completely skewed against them (and other foreign companies) as they are in China, they have no recourse other than to appeal to their government to lobby on their behalf. Facebook is in a similar position with respect to Russian interference. The narrative pushed by people like Kara Swisher of Recode is that Facebook should have fought a major world power with limitless resources for cyber attacks and because they didn't they are responsible for the damage, instead of demanding to know why the previous and present American administrations allowed an American company and public be harassed by a belligerent foreign power. >Google can simply choose not to partner with repressive regimes in enabling and legitimizing censorship and mass surveillance. And you can choose not to buy Chinese-made products and thereby no longer support and legitimize a repressive regime ... but hey, here we are.
  - panarky 8y ago
    > following rules laid out in countries that it operates in Exactly my point. Google can choose not to operate in countries where the rules are too egregiously antithetical to their mission. > Facebook should have fought a major world power Facebook is responsible for the damage because Facebook built the tools that enabled bad actors to hack democracies and Facebook profited from it (in the short term). Google is in a similar position. Should they build the tools that enable systematic repression and profit from it? Sure, they can claim they're "only following orders" but when has that ever worked out well?
white-flame 8y ago
The very notion of independent sovereignty of nations means that you can't and shouldn't expect to normalize behavior between countries. If doing business in the USA is free & good, many outsider businesses will do business there as well. If doing business in China is not all free & good, outsider business won't do business there. How much that hurts foreign businesses vs hurts China is up for debate. But governments individually rule what goes on in their borders, and use those rules both for internal ideological pursuit as well as to attract or detract external interest, as is their role. "Fairness" of doing business isn't exactly extreme human rights violations or anything. (Other behaviors are, but not this particular point you're making.)

Alir3z4 8y ago

Neither US or EU are the world police. They have no rights and should not have any to pressure any country to push their own idea of how things should work in another country, just like how China and others don't demand such and even if they do that doesn't make it less wrong.

cazum 8y ago
this is a weak argument, as it can be made for literally any situation. Israel massacring Palestinians? Hey man, they can do whatever they want, we don't have any right to tell them not to and it doesn't make what they're doing any less wrong!
- it_learnses 8y ago
  You mean Palestinians trying to massacre as many jews as possible and Israel stopping them due to their superior defense capabilities.
manigandham 8y ago
They actually are the world police. Sovereignty, nations, and conflict between them are part of human nature.
chillacy 8y ago
If government can’t produce collective action, then market forces will never overcome the prisoners dilemma on its own.
mywacaday 8y ago
Agree they are not the world police but for EU/US citizens they are our government and should reflect our views and morals. Do we believe in censorship? Do we believe in borderline cheap labor? I don't have the answers but there are hard questions there, not just for our governments but for us as voters.
Mediterraneo10 8y ago
> They have no rights and should not have any to pressure any country to push their own idea of how things should work in another country To believe that China does not attempt to influence other countries is naive. China puts a great deal of pressure on other nations with regard to things like recognition of Taiwan or inviting the Dalai Lama to speak. These have occasionally been in the news over the last few years, e.g. China’s retaliatory measures against Norway for Liu Xiabo winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but in fact they go back decades – when Michelangelo Antonioni was showing his documentary film Chung Kuo around in the early 1970s, in European countries where a screening was organized the local Chinese embassy would raise scandal.
- neom 8y ago
  China certainly has a very strong view on the make-up of the region, much is historical, some of it fair. However, we don't see them going around converting everyone to communism. In fact, even all the investment they are doing in Africa right now, very little of the social aspects of china are being exported. Xi Jinping has always maintained: china is not for export.
  - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
    > In fact, even all the investment they are doing in Africa right now, very little of the social aspects of china are being exported. China has repeatedly lobbied, with some success now, for East African nations to adopt its "Great Firewall" network infrastructure.
- vermontdevil 8y ago
  Don't forget the pressure on Marriott to fire an employee for clicking 'like' on a Tibet-related topic. And for pressuring airlines not to list Taiwan on their websites for booking.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Neither US or EU are the world police If an American pays a Chinese businessman in China a bribe, that's an FCPA [1] violation. If the U.S. government wanted to prevent American technology companies from helping China's dictator build a modern dystopia, it would have precedent. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act
ckocagil 8y ago
The US and EU have (relatively) free markets where Chinese companies can compete. But not the other way. They can simply stop trading with China unless China opens their market as well.
simias 8y ago
I think that point would have some merit if US, EU and China worked completely in isolation at every level. Let everybody sort their mess like they want. But clearly that's not the case, China's economy is very tightly linked to ours, as such the way we trade with them influences their internal politics. When a US or EU company moves production to China it's not politically neutral, this company implicitly endorses the Chinese political system. As such I don't see why we couldn't regulate these things to suit our principles and interests. It's not about saying "stop censoring the internet or we'll nuke you", it's about saying "if you want to do business with us we demand that you meet these standards, otherwise no biggy, we'll just go elsewhere." And China does attempt to do the same thing, for instance in many African countries. It's less obvious because they're still ramping up their diplomacy, US and EU have a huge headstart there.
MarkMc 8y ago
Would you apply the same policy to countries with worse human-rights violations, like North Korea?

mocae 8y ago

You make it look like google would starve without China. Like they have to go there and participate. Shifting the blame for your lack of ethics onto some government is ridiculous in this context. My god...where is your shame?

macspoofing 8y ago
>My god...where is your shame? Do you have no sense of your own hypocrisy? I am certain you have 0 qualms in using and buying Chinese manufactured products, or buying services and products from companies that operate in China. And yet here we are with you lecturing from your soapbox on who should be or shouldn't be ashamed of their actions. Look to yourself first before moralizing at others.
- mocae 8y ago
  There is a difference between not having a choice and openly advertising and justifying unethical behavior. The fact that this is the only sentence you've touched speaks for itself.
  - macspoofing 8y ago
    >There is a difference between not having a choice You have no choice? >and justifying unethical behavior. I get it. It's not unethical when you engage in commerce with a regime you find unethical, or when you buy from all the other companies that manufacture their goods in China ... but it's unethical if Google doesn't want to ignore 1.4 billion people? >The fact that this is the only sentence you've touched speaks for itself. As opposed to the other three snide and arrogant sentences? If you'd like a good-faith discussion please lead by example.
    - xvector 8y ago
      > It's not unethical when you engage in commerce with a regime you find unethical or when you buy from all the other companies that manufacture their goods in China Who says it's not unethical? Why are you putting words in peoples' mouths? On one hand you talk about having a good-faith discussion but then you go ahead and base your argument off of words you've put in someone else's mouth. > but it's unethical if Google doesn't want to ignore 1.4 billion people? Most people find corruption of data far worse than the absence of data. I'd rather not be told anything than be told a lie.

giantsloth 8y ago

You’re an immoral and evil person. Anyone who makes excuses for the powerful restricting the rights of people with limited power is a horrible human being. You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself.

dang 8y ago
We've banned this account for egregiously violating the site guidelines with this comment and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17661668. You can't post this way, regardless of how right you are or feel. We all know what the online shaming culture leads to, and we don't want that here. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. Those are at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

baybal2 8y ago

What people here don't understand is that the talk about censorship is of less than secondary importance there. China's priority here is totally not to censor them, it is to conduct the "handshaking ritual" and have them becoming subject under China's "law." A "blood pack" - making them partners in crime. The same was with Yahoo. They came to China talking only about "search," but got asked about "personal data of all China's opposition members residing in US." Not only they gave everything to China, but put extreme effort to cover their "special relationship" with China's ministry of interior. In this light, please take a look at very, very close relationship Google tried to establish with Russian government in period of 2005-2010. We are talking about nothing less than first person accounts of people involved certifying that Google was sending all kinds of "consultants" to Russian political establishment, training them in online campaigning. Simultaneously, pages of Russian political opposition did disappear in Google's search. In light of recent events, this should be subject to much scrutiny. P.S. : Additional comment on Google. At some moment they snapped after all. They closed their Russian development centre, and evacuated key personnel to Switzerland in unprecedented visa deal with government of Zurich. P.P.S. : On person whom Sundar Pichay was meeting. I read name Wang Huning in the article, and instantly I felt that something "clicked." The name was familiar. Wang Huning is the man who is the real propaganda chief in the communist party. To know more of his view of USA, please read his work titled "America against America." I will not be surprised at all if he is the man entrusted with running their stratagems targeting USA.

cryoshon 8y ago
very interesting. can you provide me with some sources to learn more? this is potentially the corruption story of the century
- baybal2 8y ago
  >very interesting. can you provide me with some sources to learn more? There was a minor intern in Russian presidential administration. Nicknamed "rLode" in the Internets. I happened to knew him as I attended language courses ran by high school he was attending. He held his home page there "http://rlode.narod.ru/main.html" http://rlode.narod.ru/main.html" a man of unconcealed, borderline rabid views on social class. If you ever unearth an archived version of the page, I guarantee you will have some fun time reading it. If you dig further, finding his offline contacts are not hard. Second was a Far Eastern strongman nicknamed "Twix" or "Nuts," man running arms trade in the Far East. How he came upon the info, I didn't know. Just assume that being a "big man" in Russia involves having lots of ears. I think you still can find him making appearances online on Russian .onion arms sales sites under different Japanese cartoons themed pseudonyms. As for people of Google's side, ask any man relocated from Moscow to Zurich. Few people I knew there voiced their extreme surprise with their relocation coming unannounced, and being done with near military level of coordination. Officials were an everyday sight in their office on Balchug street. Just the fact that their office was on an island just a river across from Kremlin tells a lot. Nobody pays a ennormous premium to have office in this special place without having "being close to Kremlin" factor in mind. On Wang, I once read the very few English translation of 半月谈 with some excerpts from his works. I never read the complete book. But the general theme is him telling party members to not to fear the USA as it is a frustrated, insecure, diseased society - something that has not to be feared, but taken advantage of. His main discontent with USA is it spreading that "plague" around the world. Following, it is CCPs role as "a global messiah" (oh my....) to rectify that, showing world "a different vision of a successful state system."

pytyper2 8y ago

Do you remember the "Don't Be Evil" campaign? Google literally rose to prominence with this as their slogan. I would expect a company whose slogan is "Don't Be Evil" to completely shun a country who wants censored search.

darepublic 8y ago
I thought Google performed censorship in North America too. After Trump's election people were crying for more censorship on facebook and Google.
- pytyper2 8y ago
  I think they censor everywhere to a certain extent, this seems more like a concerted effort along the lines of, "what are we going to allow them to view" and not "should we remove the child porn links and isis videos and pirated movie links now that we know about them"
gt_ 8y ago
You would? Google is private company. If you want a powerful entity to live up to your standards, you should look into creating a government. I recommend a democracy; and hold your neighbors accountable for treating it as their own. Together, you can eventually build something to be proud of. It will probably never be perfect, but it will be yours for as long as you take care of it.
- pytyper2 8y ago
  It was their standard, Eric Schmidt stood on many stages and said the same. Google being a private company has no bearing on my previous comment. Private companies don't have to be amoral. A much more capitalistic move would be to use their information and computation power to devalue the Yuan and acquire large swathes of the now defunct China and rename it Google. Now, not only can you search Google you can go to Google. This would be much more valuable than some pleb ad revenue.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

nailer 8y ago

Why not both? - American companies stop facilitating totalitarian regimes - World governments also prompt totalitarian regimes to move towards democracy

pravbeatle 8y ago
That's a naive and simplistic view of the world. I grew up in the Middle East and really believed they needed some democracy. In reality, moving to Democracy would result in more radicalization and instability and not less. Without going into a long rant, there are toxic forces within many countries that would take their country on a profoundly bad route, by any universal standard, if Democracy were forced upon them.
nailer 8y ago
I'd like to reply to pravebeatle anyway: I disagree with them, but they're polite and follow the HN guidelines, and their reply doesn't deserve to be flagged. I know what you're saying - there's a lot of instability in the world and sometimes people make very poor choices - but democracy is a way to better handle the turbulence. In essence, it gives us the ability to handle the coup that occurs every few years in unstable environments with less bloodshed - rather than the military taking control and ousting a leader, and a bunch of people dying or being imprisoned, another party takes over at the ballot box. The newly elected ruler might be a really bad choice, but it's the people's perjorative to choose their leaders and it's a much better alternative than another coup.
gt_ 8y ago
> Why not both? By definition, “companies” are incentivized to prioritize capital pursuit over moral pursuit. It’s actually the most fundamental part of the whole concept. Many democratic governments in the world, and particularly the most wealthy and powerful ones, are run by people who are (to a large unmeasurable extent) incentivized to do what companies want them to do. This is not a fundamental concept of a democratic government, but as long as the electorate fails to take responsibility for their own government’s behavior, the incentives remain in the company’s favor, which doesn’t make a very good case for democracy. Democracy is a very slippery concept. America, for example, is well understood to not be a democracy, but it’s people seem to have convinced themselves it is. These kinds of miscalculations are really at the root of “why not”.

StreamBright 8y ago

And why should they do that? What was the last time Western interventionism brought any good for the world? Who are the US and EU representing to tell other countries how to live their lives??

gt_ 8y ago
Right. If the US is representing anybody, it’s Google. For the Americans who want your government to represent you, you’ve got some work to do. Most Americans I know speak of their government as though it were just some poorly run business that somebody else is responsible for. Get your own house in order before you criticize others peoples’.
- barnesto 8y ago
  get out of your echo chamber and speak to more Americans
  - ionised 8y ago
    He's on HN. It's an American-centric site.
sykhic 8y ago
The Korean War ended up benefitting South Korea in the sense that they didn’t up like North Korea. The free trade agreements have largely been responsible for large numbers of the world's population improving their living standard. There are other examples of intervention being good. Of course there are lots of examples of intervention being bad. There is nothing special about Western intervention vs. intervention by other regional powers. Nations with power rarely use it for the well being of the world. But shouldn’t one strive to have governments do what you consider to be right?
- knuththetruth 8y ago
  >The Korean War ended up benefitting South Korea in the sense that they didn’t up like North Korea This is an incorrect understanding of Korean history. US anti-communist policy played no small part in creating North Korea in the first place. In the postwar period, US support for the right-wing dictator Syngman Rhee, who murdered tens of thousands of Korean citizens he suspected were his political opponents, empowered and drew popular support to Kim Il-Sung. Sung was further bolstered by the US giving favored status to Japan over Korea, forcing them, for example, to purchase goods and expertise from their brutal, former colonial rulers. With this state of affairs, Sung, a former anti-Japanese resistance fighter, was successful in persuading many that that the US-backed rule of Rhee was just an extension of the pre-War colonial rule, ultimately devolving into the never-ending civil war we have today. This in no way benefitted the south, but instead has been a nearly 70 year long drag on their economy, as well as their development into a liberal democracy (which really didn’t happen until a popular revolt in the 80s because the continued US to provide financing and support to authoritarian rulers in the south).

mtgx 8y ago

> It's not fair to expect a technology company to fight a major world economic power. This is a failure of US and EU governments. Okay, so if the US and EU governments would announce tomorrow that they will start a trade war with China and stop US/EU companies from trading with China unless China immediately stops all censorship/human rights abuses, would Google/other tech companies go along with that, or will they lobby against that move? The tech companies are not as innocent or blameless as you portray them to be.

panarky 8y ago

> It's not fair to expect a technology company to fight a major world economic power Google fights major world powers every day [1, 2]. And Google doesn't have to fight to force the Chinese government to stop censoring their citizens. Google can simply choose not to partner with repressive regimes in enabling and legitimizing censorship and mass surveillance. [1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-encrypts-data-amid-backlash-against-nsa-spying/2013/09/06/9acc3c20-1722-11e3-a2ec-b47e45e6f8ef_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-en...

macspoofing 8y ago
>Google fights major world powers every day That's right, if by 'fight' you mean following rules laid out in countries that it operates in. If the rules are completely skewed against them (and other foreign companies) as they are in China, they have no recourse other than to appeal to their government to lobby on their behalf. Facebook is in a similar position with respect to Russian interference. The narrative pushed by people like Kara Swisher of Recode is that Facebook should have fought a major world power with limitless resources for cyber attacks and because they didn't they are responsible for the damage, instead of demanding to know why the previous and present American administrations allowed an American company and public be harassed by a belligerent foreign power. >Google can simply choose not to partner with repressive regimes in enabling and legitimizing censorship and mass surveillance. And you can choose not to buy Chinese-made products and thereby no longer support and legitimize a repressive regime ... but hey, here we are.
- panarky 8y ago
  > following rules laid out in countries that it operates in Exactly my point. Google can choose not to operate in countries where the rules are too egregiously antithetical to their mission. > Facebook should have fought a major world power Facebook is responsible for the damage because Facebook built the tools that enabled bad actors to hack democracies and Facebook profited from it (in the short term). Google is in a similar position. Should they build the tools that enable systematic repression and profit from it? Sure, they can claim they're "only following orders" but when has that ever worked out well?

white-flame 8y ago

The very notion of independent sovereignty of nations means that you can't and shouldn't expect to normalize behavior between countries. If doing business in the USA is free & good, many outsider businesses will do business there as well. If doing business in China is not all free & good, outsider business won't do business there. How much that hurts foreign businesses vs hurts China is up for debate. But governments individually rule what goes on in their borders, and use those rules both for internal ideological pursuit as well as to attract or detract external interest, as is their role. "Fairness" of doing business isn't exactly extreme human rights violations or anything. (Other behaviors are, but not this particular point you're making.)