on June 24, 2009 visitors could not log on to Google.com after 9:30 p.m. that day. Gmail and many of Google's other services outside mainland China also stopped working. (Guang Niu/Getty Images)
One and a half hours later, at 11:05 p.m., Google.com and its services resumed. During that time, Google.cn continued to operate normally.
Based on information from mainland bloggers, by noon on June 25, Gmail still did not work in parts of the country.
Beijing has done ample preparation work to block Google this time. On June 18, 2009, the Chinese Central TV (CCTV) interviewed college student Gao Ye. Gao accused Google of spreading pornography in China. Chinese bloggers later exposed that Gao was an intern working for CCTV at the time.
Why did Beijing pick on Google? Google had had small disagreements with Beijing in the past but has still basically followed Beijing’s guidelines.
In January 2006, following in the footsteps of Yahoo and MSN, Google set up the search engine Google.cn for Chinese users. The search engine conformed to Beijing’s Internet rules.
But Beijing did not seem to appreciate Google’s efforts to please. On August 26, 2006, Beijing blocked Google’s Web site from searches related to the Nanjing Massacre.
Beijing then blamed Google for blocking the searches and instigated mainland surfers to turn against Google.
To further please Beijing, from June 3 through June11 this year, Google.cn blocked all information related to the Tiananmen Square Massacre. This move still did not make Beijing happy. Instead, Beijing planned for a future shutdown of Google’s services on June 24.
This isn’t the first time a western IT business has kowtowed to Beijing. On April 27, 2005, Yahoo! Hong Kong broke into Chinese reporter Shi Tao’s account and released his email information to Beijing. Shitao was sentenced to ten years in prison as a result.
To repay Yahoo for their help, several months later Yahoo was able to buy 40 percent of China’s largest business service Web site, Alibaba.com, for US$1 billion. This is the largest foreign Internet investment in China.
Google isn’t as shameless as Yahoo! In 2002, before Google entered China, Beijing blocked Google for its unwillingness to filter information on its search engine service. At the time Google did not bend and insisted on its “do-no-evil” principle.
However, Google compromised quickly and explained that the current situation did not support its principle.
Nonetheless one must admit Google still had some conscience—which makes it fundamentally different from Yahoo—and is probably why Beijing will never give Google a break no matter how hard Google tries.
Beijing manages to make Google feel that its investment in China is on thin ice but, at the same time, still has a chance to make a great profit. Beijing needs foreign investments to strengthen its control over the country and to make its economic numbers look good.
However, Google makes Beijing feel that it may threaten Beijing’s dictatorship at any time because of its willingness to provide real information online. This is why Beijing picks on Google on something small—to remind it of previous lessons.
For Beijing, there is never true cooperation. Efforts are rather focused on taking advantage of and struggling against others.
