Taipei Times
Jan 25, 2010
By: Nat Bellocchi

Google’s announcement on Jan. 12 that it would pull out of China because of hacking and restrictions on searches keyed on the google.cn platform was a shot heard around the world.

While the shot fired in 1775 by a US minuteman in Concord, Massachusetts, was a sign that the colonies were no longer willing to endure restrictions imposed by a repressive British Empire, the Google shot may be a wake-up call to those in the business and political communities that have chafed under restrictions imposed by Beijing.

Companies angling for a share of China’s market have largely turned a blind eye, or even aided and abetted Beijing in its restrictions and censorship. The prevailing justification was that companies have to follow local laws and, as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once said, “want to be part of the solution.”

Private companies have in fact aided the isolation of Taiwan at the behest of China by declining to do business there. It is all the more remarkable (and somewhat embarrassing) then that the first shot of resistance comes from a private US firm rather than a Western government.

But the submissive stance of Western companies and governments is giving way to a rebellion in the ranks, caused by China’s increasingly aggressive and haughty positions on everything from Internet hacking and repression in Tibet and East Turkestan to the climate talks in Copenhagen and support for the regimes in Sudan and Iran.

Google’s step is a courageous move that has prompted considerable rethinking among businesses and governments around the world: People are losing patience with Beijing’s heavy-handed ways. Many in the West are reconsidering the wisdom of engagement policies that assumed that economic development would lead to political liberalization in China.    more …