After a long holiday break, a political opinion is back! Though while some of us have been happily holidaying and enjoying the summer, internationally, waves are being created by China and Google, whose already rocky relationship is quickly diminishing. Cyberwarfare and hacking is warfare of the 21st century. It's not traditional warfare in the sense that a country declares war on another, as groups and states can secretly hack, corrupt and steal data from another countries government or businesses. This is further highlighted with Barack Obama citing that cyberwarfare is a grave threat to the US and that freedom of information is critical, especially on the internet. But before we delve into the current crisis of Google and China, and the implications it has for Google, China and the US, we must look at how it all started.
In 1989, the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred, which has been the last major pro democracy protest in China. This caused a huge international controversy with many countries, including Australia, almost cutting off all diplomatic channels with China. While the massacre was isolated and the rest of China kept in the dark about the situation, the western world flourished with smuggled out images depicting the atrocities. The most common is the "tank man" (a student blocking a tank from passing within the square, before being hauled away). The Chinese government staunchly wants to stay in power and believes its communist rule is the most effective in governing China. Thus it has taken great steps in order to quash pro democracy movements and information about what occurred. With the development of the internet and free flowing information, China has been willing to accept the internet to develop, however it very closely monitors, filters, blocks and traces it. Hence what it doesn't want the people of China to know, it blocks. Biadu, China's main search engine, complies with all of the Chinese Governments requests and orders. Being one of the fastest growing countries, largest in population and hence going to have the greatest internet usage out of any nation, Google has tried to tap into China's technological growth, and become a rival search engine. It entered the Chinese market with google.cn in 2006.
The relationship between Google and China has been fraught with difficulties. Firstly, China wants to restrict Google's search results and have Google "self censor" (block sites on their own will, but with direction from the government) its results. Freedom of information advocates around the world (though mainly in the US) have tried to stop Google from doing this, even to the point of suing them. The US administration's China policy and Google's has been very close over the last few years. While not comfortable with censorship, Google has not been profiteering from its Chinese venture, nor making great inroads into the Chinese search engine market. However these last few days have really put to pressure on their already weak relationship.
Google HQ in California recently found that Google, and several other US based companies from Yahoo to Symantic, had been hacked from a Chinese source. After some investigation, they found that the Chinese government had either authorized or conducted these hacks on Chinese Gmail account users, who were also pro democracy supporters. Basically the Chinese government wanted personal information about Chinese Gmail users (to which it could have asked Google to relinquish, though it most likely wouldn't have to unless under US law), but instead they hacked a small amount out. Unfortunately for the Chinese government, it just bit the digital hand that is feeding its populous. In an official blog post from Google, aptly titled "A New Approach to China", Google stated that it would review its business operations in China because of the hack, and that it would stop filtering its searches for Chinese users. Google stopping it's "self censoring" is the interesting part.
When Google used to self censor in China, any result that the Chinese government didn't like, from images of the Tiananmen square massacre, to Barack Obama's comments about democracy and freedom of information whist visiting China, to the blog post Google used to announce its Google.cn plans, were blocked. Now if you type Tiananmen square into Google.cn, instead of happy pictures of Tiananmen square in sunshine, you get pictures of the "tank man", wikipedia entries and information about the massacre. Almost a generation have not known about this incident, even people who lived throughout that time. Now, with a Google search, everything their government doesn't want them to see, they can view.
The implications this has for Google, the US and China are immense. China has to either accept Google's decision not to filter or bring it down, unless Google decides to start filtering again. The US government now has an avenue to which it can explore it's own role regarding dialog on human rights abuses and freedom of information within China, as well as the tricky situation of cyberwarfare. While there is not enough information to actually prosecute the Chinese government over the hacking, Google's decision to stop filtering its searches is worse than any international condemnation or process though the International Court of Justice. The social ramifications, and possible civil unrest, that can occur from Google's decision is yet to be seen. Hence, despite Google's intentions to 'get even' with the Chinese government, the possible waves itself can create through freedom of information is astounding.
Links
Censorship and hacker attacks provide the epitaph for Google in China - The Economist
A New Approach to China - Google's Official Blog
Chinese government-backed search engine blocks access to Google company blogAfter Google’s Loud Stance on China, U.S. Treads Lightly - The New York Times
Tensions between Google and China complicate U.S. diplomacy - The Washington Post