Universidad de las Américas Puebla
Case study 3:
China and Google: Freedom of speech, human rights, and Capitalism
International Communication CO337
Melissa Barrera TlilayatziID 140000
Laura Penélope Serrano SantoyoID 144697
Ramiro Alberto Zaleta Urbano ID 140792
Miguel Ángel García SánchezID 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:
1What would be the world today without Internet?
2How do you imagine the use of Internet in China?
3How to compete in the Internet Chinese market?
4Why have so many Western companies like Amazon and Google struggled in China’s market?
5What is the economic nature of the Internet?
6Why do U.S. Internet companies have a visible presence in the Chinese market?
7What kinds of democracy and freedom may U.S. Internet companies bring to the Chinese people?
8There 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?
9Do you believe that the Internet in China can bring positive changes? Whyorwhynot?
10Julian Dibbell and John Perry believe that the content and structure of the Internet should be unregulated and unfettered by the government. Do youagreeordisagreewiththis?
11Goldsmith 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?
12What is your opinion about having the Internet be led by the private sector?
13Should 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:OxfordUniversity Press. Retrieved April 24, 2013, from
Internet Society (2013).A Brief Guide to the History of the Internet.(n.d.).Investintech.com Inc. Retrieved April 24, 2013, from
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
Wang, X., & Ren, Z. J. (2012).How to Compete in China’s E-Commerce Market.MIT Sloan Management Review. Retrieved April 23, 2013, from
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).