Google Get Out of China While You Can!

Now that the State Department has weighed in on the matter China wants to save face and suggest that the US is doing their best to damage relationships between us and China by resorting to our "information imperialism" and suggesting that we stop using the "stop using the so-called freedom of the Internet" to push our agenda. Kudos go out to Google for standing firm on their promise to get out because of the cyberattacks, if indeed this does occur. China is now in a position of using the sheer mass of what they can offer, both with their enormous population and the premise of how many trillions of dollars can be earned there, to create a pulpit in which they can bully us from. Google says that they aren't for it, which sounds good, but what happens at the end of the day?

We already know how Microsoft treated copyright issues in China through Bill Gates' own admissions that it is easier for Windows to compete with Linux in China because the copies are being given away either for free or on the cheap in that country. Clearly Microsoft could have done more to make bootlegging of Windows more difficult in China because it did not, and it was a shrewd move. However, due to the fact that to enjoy the type of services that Google offers one needs to be allowed through the China firewall Google has no other recourse. It is telling though that Google did not take this stand a while back when they were building their brand, and does so just now after they have what they wanted, in fact it is a bit hypocritical. If Google were as interested in maintaining Internet freedom from the beginning they never would have went into China to begin with.

So now they are in an uncomfortable position of trying to move forward without China. Arguably they could easily do this yet at the same time they are turning down a lot of marketshare in doing so, making it that much for competing services to flourish in China if they do move out. If Google makes good on their promise and takes Google China down they have my respect, but quite honestly I do not see this happening, I would really be surprised if it did. They have already been in China for 5 years why would they pull out now? So far these developments have only reaffirmed what many have already said about freedom in China, but the longer that it takes for Google to leave, the less likely it is that it may ever happen ...