By Muhammad Cohen
HONG KONG – My first reaction when I heard that Google had dragged Hong Kong into its feud with mainland China was unmitigated horror. On Monday night, the United States-based search giant announced that it would reroute search requests from the mainland through its Hong Kong servers. Google aimed to circumvent the great firewall of China and deliver uncensored search results to China’s masses. Thank goodness it didn’t work.
Despite the rerouting, Chinese censors are still able to stop unwelcome content from reaching mainland computers. If Google’s ploy had worked, particularly given the company’s very public announcement of the plan, then Beijing’s only option would have been restricting Hong Kong’s freedom of information in the name of national security.
Beijing tolerates a higher degree of autonomy in Hong Kong that most would have predicted at the time of the handover from the United Kingdom in 1997. From Falungong protests to the presence of Tiananmen Square dissidents, Beijing has allowed things in Hong Kong that would be unthinkable in the mainland, and it does so knowing that, if it chose to crack down, no power on earth would stop it. The central government of China shows restraint out of genuine respect for Hong Kong and its people and a desire to make the “one country-two systems” work.
In its doomed, quixotic quest to free mainland searchers, Google disrespected Hong Kong. Without consulting anyone in the city, Google arrogantly endangered the precious freedoms its population, visitors and businesses enjoy. Perhaps Google’s founders, Serge Brin and Larry Page, can explain how recklessly risking Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy fits the company’s heralded pledge to “do no evil”.
One company – two faces
I’m no fan of Google. I consider the company a corporate hypocrite on a par with tobacco companies that for half a century denied the link between cigarettes and cancer and the US health insurance industry that says there’s no link between its increases in insurance premiums and eight-figure executive pay.
When the company was in its early days, Google said it rejected advertising, claiming ads had no place in the free search for information. Then Google discovered it could make tons of money combining search with advertising, and it evolved into one of the world’s most pernicious and invasive gatherers of users’ personal information.
A routine spyware scan after opening a Gmail account uncovered dozens of Google files shoved into my computer, probing my personal data to share with advertisers. I cleared out the files, closed the Gmail account and now avoid Google’s services wherever possible. Other platforms also gather information about users, but Google seems more virulent compared to its rivals.
Google’s corporate lack of forthrightness should make everyone who uses its search engine question the results. It also invites skepticism about Google’s allegations of a cyber-attack that originated from mainland China and claims of attempts to hack into e-mail accounts of Google users it identifies as opponents of Beijing. (Perhaps Google’s own unremitting tracking of users’ activities makes it easier for hackers to target dissidents.) Moreover, Google’s statements and tactics in response, particularly this week’s decision to escalate the dispute publicly, create doubt about what the company is really trying to accomplish in China.
Like every company that does business in China, Google initially agreed to play by China’s rules. That included censoring search results, just as every other search engine operating in China must do. Even if it has been victimized by hackers backed by the government, as Google implies, that doesn’t give the company license to break the rules.
Newton’s third law
By going public with its cyber-attack and hacking allegations and making a show of leaving mainland China (while still maintaining technical and sales employees there), Google ensured that Beijing would not respond favorably.
With apologies to Sir Isaac Newton, the third law of relations with Beijing is that for every public action there is an unequal and opposite reaction. If US President Barack Obama gives a speech telling Beijing to free an activist from prison, Beijing won’t just keep that dissident in jail, it will lock up six more. Every threat or unfriendly suggestion is seen as a challenge that must be met with an overwhelming response showing strength and unflinching resolve. Public attempts at intimidation, such as Google’s threat voiced in January to stop filtering mainland search results, can only produce one response from Beijing: go ahead, we dare you.
Getting anything done with the Chinese government requires working quietly and out of public view. Surely someone who works for Google or a consultant that advises the company must have told that to Serge and Larry and their team. While Google has become locked in this high-profile battle with Beijing it is worth looking at the mainland’s other newsmaking dispute with a foreign company, Australia-based mining giant Rio Tinto.
Four Rio Tinto executives, including mainland-born Australian national Stern Hu, were arrested last July on charges of bribery and espionage. At the time, the arrests appeared to be a heavy handed response by Beijing to difficult negotiations with Rio Tinto over iron ore prices. Public furor in Australia and beyond followed the arrests. But over the months, out of public sight, the company, the Australian government and Beijing seem to have apparently come to an understanding about the situation.
By October, Australia’s foreign minister declared bilateral relations with China were back to normal as the nations expanded security and commercial ties. Last week, Rio Tinto’s Alcan subsidiary signed a US$1.35 billion joint venture with a state-owned company to mine iron ore in West Africa. Meanwhile, prosecutors reduced the charges against executives. Hu on Monday entered a guilty plea on a bribery charge, which some experts predict sets the stage for his release without serving jail time. There was some public posturing on all sides ahead of the trial that began on Monday, but the real work has been done behind closed doors, and it seems each side has gained something by talking to each other.
If Google really wants to find an accommodation with Beijing, it’s going about it exactly the wrong way. Perhaps it really does want to pull back on its involvement in China or pull out altogether. If it does, then Google ought to be brave and principled enough to say so.
Brave and principled aren’t words that apply to many corporations in the US or beyond in this era of empty rhetoric. Instead of making a clean break or setting the stage for a solution, Google has created an atmosphere for continuing animosity with Beijing, and it has made itself 6 million new enemies in Hong Kong. You don’t need a search engine to figure out those results.
Former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen told America’s story to the world as a US diplomat and is author of Hong Kong On Air
Mohammed Abbasi 