WASHINGTON-U.S. tech firms, bedazzled by Internet, wireless and other business opportunities in China’s massively underserved market, find themselves facing intensive scrutiny and criticism from Congress, human-rights groups and others for adhering to the communist government’s censorship policies.
Chinese censorship, a growing controversy that complicates already complex U.S.-Sino relations, became a major flash point recently when Google Inc.-the Internet search giant that’s making moves into the wireless space-agreed to block access to Web sites and content deemed subversive by government officials.
The House subcommittee on Africa, global human rights and international operations next week expects to hold a hearing on tech business practices in China.
“It is astounding that Google, whose corporate philosophy is `don’t be evil,’ would enable evil by cooperating with China’s censorship policies just to make a buck,” said Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chairman of the subcommittee and a leading human-rights advocate in Congress. “China’s policy of cutting off the free flow of information is prohibitive for the growth of democracy and the rule of law. Many Chinese have suffered imprisonment and torture in the service of truth-and now Google is collaborating with their persecutors.”
The panel invited officials from Google, Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. , Cisco Systems Inc. and others to testify at the hearing. The four firms are expected to increase their presence in the wireless industry in coming years as the Internet expands to mobile platforms. Indeed, China-projected to have 440 million mobile-phone subscribers by year’s end and with still plenty of growth left in the land of 1.3 billion people-is the emerging market of choice for wireless and tech firms in the United States and abroad.
While Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco are expected to be represented at the Feb. 15 House hearing, all four firms were no-shows last Wednesday at a Capitol Hill briefing on human rights and the Internet in China.
“These massively successful high-tech companies, which couldn’t bring themselves to send their representatives to this meeting today, should be ashamed,” said Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. “With all their power and influence, wealth and high visibility, they neglected to commit to the kind of positive action that human-rights activists in China take every day. They caved in to Beijing’s demands for the sake of profits, or whatever else they choose to call it.”
Several of the four tech firms provided written statements in which they acknowledged their role in the controversy, but argued their corporate presence in China-and the liberating power of information technologies they promote-represent imperfect progress in a very closed society.
Microsoft and Yahoo issued a joint statement claiming there is little they can do to influence China’s censorship.
“While we will actively work to encourage governments around the world to embrace policies on Internet content that foster the freer exchange of ideas and promote maximum access to information, we also recognize that, acting alone, our leverage and ability to influence government policies in various countries is severely limited,” the two firms said.
Microsoft and Yahoo said they do not consider the Internet situation in China to be “business-as-usual,” and urged Bush administration officials to pursue a dialogue on the issue with their counterparts in Beijing.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, speaking on a panel in Lisbon last week, said government Internet-censorship policies are doomed to fail.
“It’s important to note that the availability of Internet technologies, the ability to e-mail, search, browse, these have been incredible factors in opening up societies. The ability to really withhold information no longer exists, even in the case where somebody is asking for things to be blocked,” Gates said.
In a statement submitted to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Andrew McLaughlin, senior policy counsel at Google, attempted to explain his company’s situation and pointed to gains already achieved in China.
“We are not happy about governmental restrictions on access to information, and we hope that over time everyone in the world will come to enjoy full access to information,” McLaughlin said. “Information and communication technology-including the Internet, e-mail, instant messaging, weblogs, peer-to-peer applications, streaming audio and video, mobile telephony, SMS text messages and so forth-has brought Chinese citizens a greater ability to read, discuss, publish and communicate about a wider range of topics, events and issues than ever before. We believe that our continued engagement with China is the best (and perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there.”
Two years ago, it was Yahoo on the hot seat after the company’s Hong Kong unit aided Chinese authorities in tracing an e-mail of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. He was sentenced to a decade in jail for illegally sending state secrets abroad, which entailed e-mailing to a Web site in New York a Chinese government directive on how it wanted the news media to cover the 15th anniversary of the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
A more sympathetic view of China’s Internet censorship was offered by James DeLong, senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation.
“In the end, search engines, even truncated ones, will contribute to the economic and political development of China … The working out of this story will be one of the great tales of human history, for tragedy or triumph, depending on how it goes,” said DeLong. “So Google should happily contribute to this effort, doing what it does, and avoiding the hubris of thinking it is responsible for China, or that it knows the answers. In this situation, good and evil are not self-evident categories.”
