Megan+and+Rachel+-+CP+-+SP11

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23google.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all China for years has had strict censorship laws regarding internet material on things like the Falun Gong and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests. As predicted, it is difficult for many search engines to control their material especially if they are located within China. If an internet company is located in China, they must follow the strict regulations posted by the government and if not, harsh consequences will arise. However, if you are located outside of China, you can still be monitored. All of Chinas broadband enters the country at three fiber optic cables, thus the Chinese government is able to control what may enter and may not. With the help of Cisco, an American Company, China installed router switches on these cables, which enables them to block content. This fierce blockade is popularly known as "The Great Firewall of China". As one could probably guess, when google first established themselves within China in 2001, they faced obstacles around the firewall. Even though google had already established themselves as the #1 search engine with over 150 country domains, they were determined to provide to China. Because they were outside of China, users when applying the search engine had to receive information after it hit the firewall. The firewall caused results to come up slower to users. Additionally, Google still showed the censored links, but the links couldn't be accessed. Allegedly because of this, in 2002 google was completely blocked for two weeks. This caused Google's stock to plummet and many users to switch over to another popular search engine, Baidu. Because Google was loosing stock, they soon created offices within China to avoid the firewall and provide a faster connection. In 2005, Google built their first office in Bejing. They were forced to block content themselves and create a user-friendly site. However, they have since inserted a disclaimer at the top of their site stating content has been blocked. Currently, users in China have two different options when using Google. They may use the unblocked google.com however, when searching for a controversial topic, you could see the links but not access the links. Additionally, users may face shutdowns or delays. Another option is accessing google.cn, which is located on Chinese soil thus produces faster results, but is completely censored. But, YouTube, a subsidy of Google, has been blocked on mainland China since 2009.

__**GOOGLE'S Stance On...**__ __Human Rights:__ Google does not feel that the Chinese government has fair and equal rights for all human beings. This is why, Google decided to stop censoring its Chinese search engine. Hundreds of million of Chinese internet users are denied the basic access to information. Other people around the world, take this right for granted everyday. "China's estimated 338 million internet users remain subject to the arbitrary dictates of state censorship." In China, government agencies are working toward implementing laws, regulations, policies, and guidelines to keep information and ideas away from the Chinese people. It is there right to this information, and the government is taking it away from them. -http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/22/china-google-withdrawal-shows-government-intransigence "The importance of freedom of expression and privacy online, illustrates the persistent risk to human rights, posed by governments, who see the free flow of information as a threat. "- http://www.hrw.org/node/87654 Thus, Google doesn't believe they have enough freedoms, however is willing to look the other way when dealing with the country. Because they currently have offices in Bejing, they profit from the internet users there. Therefore, if they voice their disapprovement, they could be completely blocked and lose money and users. Conflictingly, this goes against their company motto, "don't be evil". But recently, google has disagreed to block certain links feeling China should be able to view it, leading to major profit losses. __Global Interdependance:__ China obviously has a large global interdependance worldwide. With the world's fastest growing global market, they are catching up and skyrocketing to compete with other countries for trade. Due to this, business partners, especially ones outside of the country, expect a high level of telecommunications adn modern infrastructure. This greatly increased China's reliance technology and on broadband and the internet. However, not only did they need an increased flow of information out of the country, but into the country. This brought up issues regarding censorship with China's Ministry of Public Services whose mission statement states; "The responsibilities of public security agencies in China include: the prevention, suppression and investigation of criminal activities; fi ght against terrorist activities; maintenance of social security and order; fight against behaviors jeopardizing social order . . . security and inspection of public information networks." Therefore, there was a conflicting issue where China had a need to increase communications with other sources using the internet however, didn't want to allow outside sources to influence the people to uprise or dislike the government. In order to maintain the rate at which they are growing, they are forced to allow internet but strictly monitor it. Everyday they aquire and invest money in new resources to improve censorship hindering their ability to interact with other countries. __Environment:__ As one country develops, it is bound to trail a slew of environmental problems. However, due to China's size and population spike, this list is longer than usual. Today, China faces problems with airpollution, biodiversity loss, depleted fisheries, desertification, disappearing wetlands, grassland degradation. The list continues with man-made induced problems like overgrazing, interrupted river flow, salinization, soil erosion, trash accumulation, water pollution, and water shortages. Additionally, pollution is only inhanced by China's dependance on coal for energy. Burning coal releases a large amount of carbon dioxide, their out of date and inefficent equipment adding to the problem. Because China is the worlds third largest consumer of coal and oil, it produces the second largest source of green housde gas emissions. Therefore, Google being an internet site has no affiliation with the climate change, but feels they need to improve on the issue. __Tolerance to Diversity:__ Google feels China has a very low tolerance to diversity, especially those groups who oppose the government. Such a low tolerance that the government feels the need to force companies like google to censor them from their search query. China houses over 56 different ethnic groups, all remaining a part of the chinese culture. China only has a low tolerance if these groups or individuals openly oppose the government, then they are severly persecuted. Google has been forced to censor groups like Falun Gong just because they oppose the leading power. The government is afraid of other citizens joining this movement and launching a full scale revolt towards the communist government. To protest this, Google has recently refused to censor results until China lifts some of their multiple censorship bans.

**__Efforts Taken To Interact with China:__** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Google China was founded in 2005. Google and China had a relationship for five years. Then, in 2010, Google announced that it had been hacked and that it would no longer be willing to censor searches in China and it may pull out of the country altogether. On March 23rd, Google redirected all search queries from google.cn to google.hk, which wa hosted in Hong Kong. Because of this, Hong Kong bypasses many of mainland China's laws including censorship. Thus, google was then available uncensored. In March of 2010, searching via all Google search sites was banned in Mainland China. If anyone attempted to search with Google, the result would be a DNS error. On June 30th, Google ended the automatic redirect of Google China, to Google Hong Kong. Now, they just placed a link to Google Hong Kong, to avoid getting their Internet Content Provider License revoked and the ban was lifted. Today, Google has headquarters in Beijing, People's Republic of China.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">__**Google’s Relationship With China: Positive or Negative?**__ <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In the past, Google’s relationship with China has been conflicting. Google wants to have a good relationship with China because they have invested stock in China and they will make money from the China’s large population, using their search engine. However, China does not feel that Google should be able to spread just any information to their people. China feels that Google’s links need to be censored. For the people, this means that they can often not access all of the information that they need or want. Although, Google still has a headquarters in Beijing and the people are still using Google. As quoted in an official statement released by googgle; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"There is no question that, as a matter of business, we want to be active in China. It is a huge, rapidly growing, and enormously important market, and our key competitors are already there. It would be disingenuous to say that we don’t care about that because, of course, we do. We are a business with stockholders, and we want to prosper and grow in a highly competitive world." <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Therefore, as stated before, in order for google to continue to prosper, they must have a stake in China's global market. Meaning, they will follow the censorship laws to maintain their ISP liscense. But, currently Google has disagreed to censor sites and threatens to remove their exsistance in China altogether.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**__Google Promoting China?__** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Google does not have an opinion either way. Google has stock in the U.S. and China, so no matter which economy is doing better at the time, Google will still benefit. Google is in China, for the social change in China, not the money. Also, Google is in China, for the people. Google feels that some internet access is better than none, for the people. Google puts the people first, and the profit second. Google does not care whether or not, the Chinese economy rises above the U.S. economy or not.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">China is eventually going to dominate the global economy. China's economy is growing fast and strong. Also, their population is immensely growing. As the economy and the population grow, Google will grow because their search engine will be used more and more. Google feels that eventually the censorship laws will be relaxed. Additionally, Google believes that when the Chinese people get wind of possibilities of the free world, as seen through search results, the regime will be forced to slowly dismantle its infrastracture of censorship. Google feels, that in 50 years the global economy in China will grown very strong, and Google and the people of China will benefit from a healthy relationship together.
 * __<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What Impact Will China Have on The World in 50yrs? __**