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>Schmidt said he thinks people will likely see “fantastic leadership in products and services from China,” noting the scale of the nation’s business, the massiv

>Schmidt said he thinks people will likely see “fantastic leadership in products and services from China,” noting the scale of the nation’s business, the massive wealth being created there and the advance of global trade, according to the report. But he acknowledged the country’s growing economic influence may have political consequences: “There’s a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc.," CNBC reported. this is doublespeak of the very highest order. on the one hand, schmidt is praising china so that google has better chances of success there. on the other hand, he's admitting that china might be a totalitarian state presently or in the future. the dupe is that it isn't a danger for china to start doing censorship or controlling speech. it's a reality, and now he's trying to gaslight us by claiming that the reality is false and his impression of it is what is really true. china is a totalitarian state. and soon, with google's help and the complicity of google employees, they will continue to do so with greater efficiency than before. mao imagined a country where the state was the not merely the highest power in the land, but the only power. they're getting there. if their internet splits definitively, they'll use their cordoned internet as an iron curtain. or perhaps a "bamboo curtain" is the more appropriate term. they are already well along this path. either way, over a billion people will be kept in the dark. some will enjoy it. some will not care. and some will die for their curiosity. schmidt knows this perfectly well.

meddlepal 8y ago
> china is a totalitarian state. and soon, with google's help and the complicity of google employees, they will continue to do so with greater efficiency than before. mao imagined a country where the state was the not merely the highest power in the land, but the only power. they're getting there. This isn't Google's problem. They're just a company out to make some money for the shareholders. If the people of China want Democracy and freedom they need to fight for it. So far, the Chinese have not done that and do not seem to care that much about western-style freedom. It is entirely possible that not all cultures and societies desire the same thing.
- SkyMarshal 8y ago
  Some of the Chinese have done that - Tienamenn Square, Hong Kong democracy protests, and Taiwanese democracy come to mind. And yes it is Google’s problem to extent Google is not an amoral monolithic entity but a collection of human beings all over the world for whom human rights are directly impactful, and will be even more so as totalitarianism grows and spreads. At some point we have to stop hiding behind the belief that shareholder value maximization also inevitably results in human freedom. That’s a post-Coldwar conceit that was financially lucrative for a time for Western companies, but which the CCP is doing their best to disprove now.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    Man, when you read stuff like this you start realizing: China's firewall DOES work bidirectionally. There are constant protests in China. > shareholder value maximization The biggest causes of abuses in China are the world doing nothing, not when China was brutally taking over Nepal, not when brutally annexing Hong Kong (which was brutal despite the dog and pony show put up for the Queen). Hell, we are mostly choosing China's side over (tiny) annexations in India and Pakistan. There were very little protests about the extreme abuses in Xinjang, the "criminal" organ donor scandals, the lead poisoning of (chinese and western) children just to use cheaper paint, ... So yes, you can protest company actions, but first and foremost governments, most of all the EU, but also the US, are to blame. And of course things like the UN ... they're ... they're a farce. The reality is that, imho, Google coming to China will make one hell of a lot of information available to Chinese citizens. I would expect this to have positive results, not negative. We also know what the outcome will most likely be of not doing anything in China. It seems to me A > B, do you disagree ? The attitude that doing nothing is superior to taking action is toxic and stupid. But yes, some very bad actions will have to be taken because that evil government demands it, and yes, some people here will need to do that. But the first point is: the Chinese firewall clearly needs piercing from the western side as well. Here's more recent, mostly large scale, Chinese incidents, lightly categorized: Labour abuse: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/13/china-coal-protests-highlight-overcapacity-tensions.html https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/13/china-coal-protests-highligh... (there have been years of constant protests everywhere in the Chinese coal industry, for at least years since 2013 or so) https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/communist-chinas-crackdown-on-labor-protesters/ https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/communist-chinas-crackdown-o... Racist state attitudes/discrimination: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_rio... Pro-democracy and Hong Kong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/protests-hong-kong-high-speed-rail-link-china-180922092549498.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/protests-hong-kong-hi... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-40406429 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-40406429 (one thing about the Chinese state total control, they want to control everything, including of course language. And they do it with a very heavy hand) Generally protests against the state and party, with various focus points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Chinese_pro-democracy_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Chinese_pro-democracy_pro... http://uk.businessinsider.com/china-students-missing-after-riot-police-storm-apartment-to-stop-protest-2018-8?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/china-students-missing-after-r... https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-protest-over-cash-strapped-citys-school-plan-turns-violent-1535886485 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-protest-over-cash-strappe... https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/31/asia/vaccine-protest-scandal-china-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/31/asia/vaccine-protest-scan... https://money.cnn.com/video/news/2018/08/08/chinese-lending-companies-government-protests-p2p-matt-rivers.cnnmoney/index.html https://money.cnn.com/video/news/2018/08/08/chinese-lending-... https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/protest-beatings-09062018124710.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/protest-beatings-0906...

meddlepal 8y ago

> china is a totalitarian state. and soon, with google's help and the complicity of google employees, they will continue to do so with greater efficiency than before. mao imagined a country where the state was the not merely the highest power in the land, but the only power. they're getting there. This isn't Google's problem. They're just a company out to make some money for the shareholders. If the people of China want Democracy and freedom they need to fight for it. So far, the Chinese have not done that and do not seem to care that much about western-style freedom. It is entirely possible that not all cultures and societies desire the same thing.

SkyMarshal 8y ago
Some of the Chinese have done that - Tienamenn Square, Hong Kong democracy protests, and Taiwanese democracy come to mind. And yes it is Google’s problem to extent Google is not an amoral monolithic entity but a collection of human beings all over the world for whom human rights are directly impactful, and will be even more so as totalitarianism grows and spreads. At some point we have to stop hiding behind the belief that shareholder value maximization also inevitably results in human freedom. That’s a post-Coldwar conceit that was financially lucrative for a time for Western companies, but which the CCP is doing their best to disprove now.
- candiodari 8y ago
  Man, when you read stuff like this you start realizing: China's firewall DOES work bidirectionally. There are constant protests in China. > shareholder value maximization The biggest causes of abuses in China are the world doing nothing, not when China was brutally taking over Nepal, not when brutally annexing Hong Kong (which was brutal despite the dog and pony show put up for the Queen). Hell, we are mostly choosing China's side over (tiny) annexations in India and Pakistan. There were very little protests about the extreme abuses in Xinjang, the "criminal" organ donor scandals, the lead poisoning of (chinese and western) children just to use cheaper paint, ... So yes, you can protest company actions, but first and foremost governments, most of all the EU, but also the US, are to blame. And of course things like the UN ... they're ... they're a farce. The reality is that, imho, Google coming to China will make one hell of a lot of information available to Chinese citizens. I would expect this to have positive results, not negative. We also know what the outcome will most likely be of not doing anything in China. It seems to me A > B, do you disagree ? The attitude that doing nothing is superior to taking action is toxic and stupid. But yes, some very bad actions will have to be taken because that evil government demands it, and yes, some people here will need to do that. But the first point is: the Chinese firewall clearly needs piercing from the western side as well. Here's more recent, mostly large scale, Chinese incidents, lightly categorized: Labour abuse: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/13/china-coal-protests-highlight-overcapacity-tensions.html https://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/13/china-coal-protests-highligh... (there have been years of constant protests everywhere in the Chinese coal industry, for at least years since 2013 or so) https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/communist-chinas-crackdown-on-labor-protesters/ https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/communist-chinas-crackdown-o... Racist state attitudes/discrimination: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_rio... Pro-democracy and Hong Kong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/protests-hong-kong-high-speed-rail-link-china-180922092549498.html https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/protests-hong-kong-hi... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-40406429 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-40406429 (one thing about the Chinese state total control, they want to control everything, including of course language. And they do it with a very heavy hand) Generally protests against the state and party, with various focus points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Chinese_pro-democracy_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Chinese_pro-democracy_pro... http://uk.businessinsider.com/china-students-missing-after-riot-police-storm-apartment-to-stop-protest-2018-8?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/china-students-missing-after-r... https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-protest-over-cash-strapped-citys-school-plan-turns-violent-1535886485 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-protest-over-cash-strappe... https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/31/asia/vaccine-protest-scandal-china-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/31/asia/vaccine-protest-scan... https://money.cnn.com/video/news/2018/08/08/chinese-lending-companies-government-protests-p2p-matt-rivers.cnnmoney/index.html https://money.cnn.com/video/news/2018/08/08/chinese-lending-... https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/protest-beatings-09062018124710.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/protest-beatings-0906...