Richard Samuelson: Why China Views Google as a Tool of the U.S. Government
[Richard Samuelson is the 2009–2010 Garwood Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s James Madison Program, and an Assistant Professor of History at California State University, San Bernardino.]
The clash between China and Google is the first shot in what could be a long war. Why should this be the case when, as Fareed Zakaria notes, the U.S. and China “have powerful reasons to cooperate with one another”?
Those reasons, however powerful, might not be enough. The trouble is that what Americans think of as basic liberty, something that’s as necessary to the good life as the air we breathe, China regards as imperialism....
In America, we take “civil society” — a sphere of activity where free and equal citizens may do and say what they please — for granted. Since that is our experience, we tend to think that it’s simply how the world is supposed to be. Yet individual liberty, personal privacy, and the rights to assemble, to lobby, and to exchange thoughts and beliefs are particular ideas, even if they are universal in scope. To provide just one example: In China, there are five officially recognized religions. Members of other religious groups are not free to practice openly....
China understands America very differently than we do. To them, the U.S. private sector and the U.S. government comprise one all-encompassing nation. Hence the “campaign for the uncensored free flow of information” is a “U.S. campaign,” and they see Google as a tool of the U.S. government. To them, the U.S., through Google, is engaged in “Internet warfare.” To allow information to flow freely, without monitoring by the government, is to knuckle under to Western imperialism. In short, China does not acknowledge the distinction between state and society that is fundamental in America....
We face, in short, a clash of regimes. Values and institutions that are fundamental in and essential to the United States, and that make the U.S. what it is, are incompatible with values and institutions that are fundamental in and essential to China, and that make it what it is....
As China becomes an ever more important player in world affairs, the clash between the liberal regimes of the West and China will continue. The conflict will not end until either the U.S. or China changes fundamentally. Ultimately, the very existence of the Chinese regime, as it is currently constituted and as it understands itself, is irreconcilable with the idea of a truly private sector, one with freedoms of expression and religion. As the regime sees it, China cannot accept the free flow of ideas, information, and goods and still be China.
Read entire article at National Review
The clash between China and Google is the first shot in what could be a long war. Why should this be the case when, as Fareed Zakaria notes, the U.S. and China “have powerful reasons to cooperate with one another”?
Those reasons, however powerful, might not be enough. The trouble is that what Americans think of as basic liberty, something that’s as necessary to the good life as the air we breathe, China regards as imperialism....
In America, we take “civil society” — a sphere of activity where free and equal citizens may do and say what they please — for granted. Since that is our experience, we tend to think that it’s simply how the world is supposed to be. Yet individual liberty, personal privacy, and the rights to assemble, to lobby, and to exchange thoughts and beliefs are particular ideas, even if they are universal in scope. To provide just one example: In China, there are five officially recognized religions. Members of other religious groups are not free to practice openly....
China understands America very differently than we do. To them, the U.S. private sector and the U.S. government comprise one all-encompassing nation. Hence the “campaign for the uncensored free flow of information” is a “U.S. campaign,” and they see Google as a tool of the U.S. government. To them, the U.S., through Google, is engaged in “Internet warfare.” To allow information to flow freely, without monitoring by the government, is to knuckle under to Western imperialism. In short, China does not acknowledge the distinction between state and society that is fundamental in America....
We face, in short, a clash of regimes. Values and institutions that are fundamental in and essential to the United States, and that make the U.S. what it is, are incompatible with values and institutions that are fundamental in and essential to China, and that make it what it is....
As China becomes an ever more important player in world affairs, the clash between the liberal regimes of the West and China will continue. The conflict will not end until either the U.S. or China changes fundamentally. Ultimately, the very existence of the Chinese regime, as it is currently constituted and as it understands itself, is irreconcilable with the idea of a truly private sector, one with freedoms of expression and religion. As the regime sees it, China cannot accept the free flow of ideas, information, and goods and still be China.