Google.cn To Cease Censorship

According to the Huffington Post in an article posted at 6:10PM today, Google is no longer going to censor its search results in China. As an American who spent the last four months studying in Beijing, all I have to say is what did you expect? The Google office happened to be right outside Tsinghua University in the science and technology park along with other companies like Microsoft. The logo was visible from some of my favorite street food vendors, but soon enough, that familiar logo could be gone reminding students studying at Tsinghua just how far away from home they are.

Using Google was frustrating even in the foreign student dorms where many of your search results might have been censored by the government. Luckily, I was capable of checking my Gmail account but on top of not having full Google access, this website, blogger.com had been blocked. One of the courses I took at Tsinghua University characterized the mission of the government: to maintain order while technologically gentrifying China's communication infrastructure. This is something China is going to have to do on its own. While it made sense at one time for American companies to pursue ventures in Chinese markets, it seems likely that both would benefit from ceasing their relationship in instances like this one.

Doing business in China can be frustrating for foreign companies like Google who have to satisfy the ever changing standards of the Chinese government. Most companies in the United States pride themselves on keeping their customer records confidential and out of reach of the government. This is not the case in China where governments monitor all Internet activity. Government control varies from banning particular words, like the character for "harmony," to the complete ban on websites like Youtube, or Facebook, or Blogger, and maybe in the near future Google.

The Chinese market will work itself out better than Google can. If Google pulls out, it's not the end of the world. It's just another website that's blocked by the Chinese government. In this case the invisible hand of the market is replaced by the iron fist of the party and until the situation changes companies like Google won't succeed in the Middle Kingdom. Is it wrong? Maybe, but what are the alternatives?