UNIVERSIDAD DE LAS AMÉRICAS PUEBLA
Case study 3:
China and Google: Freedom of speech, human rights, and
Capitalism
International Communication CO337
Melissa Barrera Tlilayatzi
Laura Penélope Serrano Santoyo
Ramiro Alberto Zaleta Urbano
Miguel Ángel García Sánchez
ID 140000
ID 144697
ID 140792
ID 135525
GOOGLE IN CHINA
As the Internet industry continues to expand around the world, a lot of important and
confidential information comes and goes through the net in an easy way. Most of the
governments started to create or tighten some controls to restrict the information and do not
let know about some internal situations, China is the most remarkable example. In 1995, the
Chinese government started to create some commercial internet accounts, at least sixty sets
of regulations have been issued and aimed at controlling Internet content (Zhang, 2010). The
same author, mentions that these regulations and this type of government, represents a clear
violation of the right to freedom of expression as well as, its devoting considerable time and
resources while trying to implement them.
We are living in an age where most people nationwide communicate with each other
through the use of Internet commonly. However even in this technological era some countries
like China impose restrictions to its citizen to the use of Internet, including the flow of
information, and the freedom of expression (Micky Lee, 2010). For this presentation we plan
to lead the discussion of the topic through thirteen different questions about the use of
Internet in China:
1
What would be the world today without Internet?
2
How do you imagine the use of Internet in China?
3
How to compete in the Internet Chinese market?
4
Why have so many Western companies like Amazon and Google struggled in China’s
market?
5
What is the economic nature of the Internet?
6
Why do U.S. Internet companies have a visible presence in the Chinese market?
7
What kinds of democracy and freedom may U.S. Internet companies bring to the
Chinese people?
8
There is a consensus that the Internet will bring positive changes to a politically closed
society, do you think that this is true or false? Why?
9
Do you believe that the Internet in China can bring positive changes? Why or why
not?
10 Julian Dibbell and John Perry believe that the content and structure of the Internet
should be unregulated and unfettered by the government. Do you agree or disagree
with this?
11 Goldsmith and Wu (2006) presented a convincing case that the Internet is far from
being free of government control. Do you agree or disagree with this? Is there
anything that can be done to change this?
12 What is your opinion about having the Internet be led by the private sector?
13 Should the government remove barriers to private sector investment in Internet
applications?
Throughout the years the World Wide Web known as “Internet” has changed quickly
(Robert McMahon, 2011). Firstly the Internet was built by the U.S. military during the Cold
War, and it was diffused only to the scientific and academic community (Lee, 2010). Later in
1972 Ray Tomlinson while working for BBN created the first program devoted to email, and in
1983 TCP/IP became the standard of the Internet protocol. Nowadays, Internet possesses
social networks with more than 400 million of active users (Internet Society, 2013). This
exemplifies that the evolution of Internet is the result of technological evolution, social aspects,
operational and management aspects of infrastructure as well as commercialization aspects.
Through the evolution of the Internet, the Clinton administration played a fundamental
role within the use and autonomy of this media communication system (Lee, 2010). This
administration was established from 1993 to 2001 and during this period of time, it transferred
the autonomy of the Internet from its founders to private sectors. Furthermore, it opened the
trading door to China, since the Clinton administration became aware that this country was
opened to make productive investments. Thanks to Deng Xiaoping (a politician and reformist
leader of the Communist Party of China) and Mao Tse-Tung's death, China became a market
economy to the entire world. Therefore through the years, different U.S. Presidents have
granted and cataloged China as the “most favored nation”. According to Lee (2010), the
Clinton administration considered that “China could not be isolated by the U.S. otherwise this
would cut off the world’s growing market and that trading would open up ideas to Chinese
leaders“. Clinton also believed that in the information age, the wealth of any nation, including
China’s, lies in its people, in their capacity to create, communicate, to innovate” (Wang, X., &
Ren, Z. J. 2012).
Even though the global society is living in a technological period of time in China,
there are restrictions to certain virtual services (McMahon, 2011). In China at least twelve
different agencies are always checking, creating and applying new Internet regulations for
different servers, in one way or another, these fact become obstacles for the foreign
companies which try to provide their services to the Chinese citizens. Within these
regulations stand out the policing of cyber-cafes and government-run computers that
constantly are monitored for banned content, users of the cyber cafes have to present their
identification every time that they use a computer and their personal information will be
handed over the Chinese authorities (McMahon, 2011). Even though in other countries the
use of social networks like Facebook or Twitter or video websites like Youtube and even
Wikipedia is the most normal thing, in China they are not allowed and they are replace by
other servers (Zhang, Y. 2010).
As a result of the Chinese restrictions “google.cn” appeared (Lee, 2010). Google
launched Google.cn which is a special filtered search engine for China due to this fact, some
politicians felt disappoint because this company along others was assisting the Chinese
government to censor the freedom of speech. Therefore, every western company that would
like to enter into the Chinese market must consider that “freedom of speech” is not a right and
the firm must be conscious that it will be operating under the Chinese government's rules.
Fortunately even in China the western companies specially the American’s one have
found different strategic solutions to compete in the dragon’s market (McMahon, 2011).
Within those strategies figured out that western companies need to adapt their products in
order to offer to the Chinese consumers’ social habits, every company must center its
attention at the consumers instead of the information systems. Besides, American companies
must accelerate their decision-making processes and to be susceptible to influence as well as
imaginative strategies in response to moderate the regulations imposed. Last but not least,
the American firms should make and effort in order to try to understand the Chinese culture,
its way of thinking and its society (Jack Goldsmith, 2006).
Bibliography:
Goldsmith, J & (2006) Who controls the Internet? Illusions of a borderless world. Oxford:Oxford
University Press. Retrieved April 24, 2013, from http://jost.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/whocontrols-the-internet_illusions-of-a-borderless-world.pdf
Internet Society (2013). A Brief Guide to the History of the Internet. (n.d.). Investintech.com Inc.
Retrieved April 24, 2013, from http://www.investintech.com/content/historyinternet/
Lee, M. (2010) Revisiting the “Google in China” Question from a Political Economic Perspective.
China Media Research 6(2)
McMahon, R. (2006). U.S. Internet Providers and the 'Great Firewall of China' Retrieved Apr,
2013. Retrieved April 24, 2013, from http://www.cfr.org/china/us-internet-providers-greatfirewall-china/p9856
Wang, X., & Ren, Z. J. (2012). How to Compete in China’s E-Commerce Market. MIT Sloan
Management Review. Retrieved April 23, 2013, from http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-tocompete-in-chinas-e-commerce-market/
Zhang, Y. (2010). The right to freedom of expression versus media censorship in China: Chinese
citizens and the Internet. (Master dissertation). Retrieved from thesis database of university of
Tromsø. (SOA-3902).