The Western media have been singing dirges to freedom in China ever since Google’s departure seemed certain. But surprise, surprise, the impulse for freedom continues to exist in this communist dictatorship, Google or no Google. Just four days back, at an IT summit in Shenzhen, the CEOs of China’s leading IT firms demanded a “censorship-free zone”, and suggested Shenzhen, which was created as a special economic zone in the 1980s, as the ideal place for it. Overwhelming internet controls, they said, were preventing their industry’s growth. China’s 400 million netizens needed monitoring, said the CEO of Sina.com, but the internet needed to be “revolutionary, a continually innovating industry.’’ It must be allowed to make mistakes, added another CEO. Only a censorship-free zone would allow everyone to find out what would really happen if the internet was free, and thereafter a more rational censorship policy could be evolved.
Not surprisingly, these comments were deleted from the internet portal that reported them. But the print media took them up. Chang Fing, writing in the Chinese Financial Times, pointed out the contradiction that the Chinese government is finding so difficult to handle: “(it is) strictly controlling politics, while being tolerant in economics. But the creativity of a society is its integral unity. If one board in a barrel is short, then the whole barrel will leak....”
Google’s departure has stirred up a lively debate on the nature of freedom in this country. The government has largely succeeded in making it a Chinese-self-respect versus US-imperialism question, but there are enough serious critiques of this theory. The young, popular writer, Han Han, wrote in his usual mocking way that the ideals over which Google has left China — freedom and truth — simply don’t matter to the Chinese. The few who do care about them can’t move the majority who don’t. Money and survival are more important to the latter.
Burning issue
Other commentators are more hopeful. Google’s shift to Hong Kong is seen as a clever move, for though the former British colony is a part of China, the Great Firewall does not operate there, thanks to the ‘One country, two systems’ policy that was adopted during its handover. The Chinese visit Hong Kong all the time; in fact, already, Chinese netizens on the mainland have started using Google.com.hk and have found that they can get more than they could from Google.cn. One netizen wrote that mainlanders will soon conclude that the censorship policy is unreasonable, because if the information blocked on the mainland was really dangerous to the Chinese, the Hong Kong authorities would block it too. Mainlanders would soon start demanding that they be allowed to access the same sites, for “Aren’t we all Chinese people?”
Some commentators point out that the Chinese internet has become such a strong force that Google should have, in the interest of the very values for which it claims to be leaving China, stayed on and strengthened them. Its going will encourage domestic search engines to become lax since they will now enjoy a monopoly. But given the demands of the IT CEOs at Shenzhen, this seems unlikely. The best comment, however, came from a journalist, Qian Gang, who pointed out that the values for which Google claims to be leaving are being fought for everyday by the Chinese themselves.
“Google’s exit from mainland China is certainly a loss... But there are thousands of journalists in China fighting every day for freedom. They will continue to work, inching ahead, regardless of whether or not topics like June Fourth can be discussed. This is why the flame of professional media in China burns on.’’
