The battle between Google and China is opening up a new front in the struggle for control of an increasingly varied and complicated international landscape. No longer is the diplomacy playbook of the 20th century sufficient for China, as the emerging superpower squares up against an “enemy” that has no government, no borders and no nuclear weapon.
Even the experiences of the United States in dealing with a shadowy terrorist organization like Al Qaeda are inappropriate. Google does not hide. But it is just as powerful as any sovereign state, if not more. Through just a blog post on Jan 12, the superbrand grabbed international headlines and cast the emerging superpower as the representative of all that is bad about humanity. By threatening to pull out of the country following alleged attacks by Chinese hackers on its e-mail service, and protesting against the Chinese government’s increasingly tight control of the Internet, the global search engine assumed the role of a global moral crusader. It is the defender of freedom and openness: China is not. The People’s Republic is the villain.
More importantly, Google has the guts to go where few, if any, major multinational corporations have gone: Publicly chastising and challenging a Chinese government that is known to be extremely thin-skinned. That is equivalent to pulling down the pants of the neighborhood bully and telling the whole world about it. Google is more than just a search engine, a company or a brand. It is, as observers have pointed out, an “interest state” — a leviathan formed through shared interest, sans geographical borders.
As analyst Rebecca MacKinnon, an expert on Chinese cyberspace, wrote on her blog: “Google administrators or controls increasingly large parts of this space where a growing percentage of global Internet users’ activities happen. Google’s power over our freedom in cyberspace is government-like — with real implications for our physical freedom in ‘meatspace’, as the China situation clearly illustrates.”
Phrases such as “The Google Republic” have been used to describe the company, with some casting its fight with Beijing as Google breaking “diplomatic relationship with China”.
Writer Siva Vaidhyananthan, who has upcoming book titled The Googlization Of Everything, believes that the battle between China and Google is reminiscent of a tussle between nation states. “The Internet has enough diverse interests and players that it demands governance. No traditional state is in the position or willing to assume that role. So Google governs the Internet,” he wrote.
“One could read this showdown…as a classic international power conflict between a major traditional state and a new, virtual state: The Googlenet. Google is taking a risky stand to defend the Internet generally. This is what a weaker, threatened state would do.”‘
And thus far, it has not done too badly. Observers have pointed to Google’s cleverly occupying the moral high ground in this debate, bolstering its reputation and burnishing its “Don’t Be Evil” motto.
South China Morning Post columnist Wang Xiangwei called the fight one of China’s “biggest public relations disasters in recent years”. But others have argued that Google will come out of this as the loser, with the Chinese government unlikely to back down from this public stand-off. “Google will be obliged either to accept Chinese regulations or exit the world’s largest Internet market, with serious consequences for its long-term global ambitions,” analyst Martin Jacques wrote in Newsweek. He is the author of When China Rules The World: The End Of The Western World And The Birth Of A New Global Order.
“This is a metaphor for our times: America’s most dynamic company cannot take on the Chinese government — even on an issue like free and open information — and win.”
In truth, if neither side gives way in this battle, there will be no winners. Google may exit with its head held high, but it would be giving up on a market of 380 million Netizens, a fifth of global online users. That cannot not hurt. For the Chinese government, it can play the nationalistic card and crow to its people that it has remained steadfast in upholding Chinese laws and refusing to bend to foreign demands. Yet, it is undeniable that a Google pullout would not help the standing of a regime hungry for international respect and recognition. Just look at how eagerly the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sought the presence of global leaders at the Beijing Olympics, and soon, the Shanghai World Expo.
There is still a chance for both sides to avoid this lose-lose situation. But the key would be that both players must want to compromise and therefore, would refrain from scoring points by playing to the stands. That calls for Google to take its complaints offline and into the meeting room with the Chinese, and avoid further humiliating the Chinese government. It has to give the Chinese government some “face”. The CCP, on the other hand, must resist the strong nationalist temptation to swat Google away like an irritating foreign fly and tell the world the Chinese people are happy with Baidu — China’s top search engine — anyway.
The key here is for the Chinese to regard Google as a significant player on the world stage, an “interest state” sovereign in its own right, and with enough power to hurt it just like a nation state might. Just as the U.S. had to learn to take on non-nation state adversaries like Al Qaeda, China has come to embrace the biggest Western capitalist giants in the last three decades, and Google should not be an exception. It may be a virtual player, but its influence is real. China may not have the world’s most beloved regime, but the rise of the country is indubitable. A conflict between these two new superpowers cannot be beneficial to the rest of the world.
Article written by Peh Shin Huei for The Straits Times