> Google is necessary here to provide the fertile soil on which thinkers can raise and start questioning their political status quo.
No it’s not. Many people are actively questioning the status quo, on all levels, take a recent example: http://chinaheritage.net/journal/imminent-fears-immediate-ho...
Economic war should only be used to disable aggressive enemies, because it has never actually helped anyone better their human rights or political rights. In fact, among "passive" abusers of human rights we see that more contact with the rest of the world improves conditions.
The main problem with sanctions is that they affect economies of both confilicting parties, and democracies are generally more sensible to economic problems than authoritarian regimes.
It's not our job to "fix China". It's like some abusive alcoholic -- it's basically their problem, but if you go out drinking with them, and hold their beer when they kill random strangers, and then continue the conversation like nothing happened, you're helping making it worse, and are direct party to normalizing it.
Companies don't have to pull out of China, they'd just have to speak up and never shut up, and China would kick them out. And maybe one day, when the hangover is particularly bad, there might be a hazy memory of an upright person saying "call me when you realized this isn't working".
When people protested against Hitler, it was with slogans such as "murder isn't politics". Likewise, cooperation with murderers isn't business.
You cannot personify nations for many reasons, the foremost of which is their sovereignty. No country is beholden to another beyond war and economic sanctions. The amazing period of peace and prosperity the Earth is experiencing since WW2 can be directly attributed to the establishment of diplomatic channels and using them..
It is not "racist" if the majority of population supports unethical things.
Georgia tried to overrun ethnic minorities' republics it does not control, you peg it on Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War#Large-scale...
Ukraine shells large cities with rocket artillery for denying its control under the new government that nobody voted for - killing around 3000 civians in process - again, you blame those killings on Russians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbass#Humanitarian_co...
Yes there is a room for discussion on both occassions, but as far as you are concerned, there's nothing to discuss.
As for russian denials about their invasions - I don't care what those liars say. They are proven patented liars, majority of the population and 100% of their government. And you are correct, there is nothing to discuss.
Somewhat of a discourse. In the last years, "China and Russia" became a new racist norm against anything and everything there. My mom and dad are absolutely against totalitarianism, but their "cardinal sin" is that they were born in Russia and they lack the financial means to move to another country. For years, they can't even buy any good cheese because the cheese was "sanctioned" as an import. Those imported goods that didn't disappear doubled and tripled in price. So whom did it hurt? I assure you that people in the government can buy any cheese they want.
Back to Google and China. You can't find anything on Baidu or Sogou, it's so ridiculously bad that most of the knowledge in CNnet is concentrated within a few large systems: Wechat, Zhihu, Weibo. The idea of a "website" or a "blog" is almost unheard of, mostly because there will never be any exposure to this website or blog. Everything in China is on some kind of platforms. And as long as there are just a few big platforms, the government can control it all.
Even now Google is a much better source of relevant information on the Chinese internet, and if it works in China officially, it will give regular Chinese people unprecedented flexibility and knowledge exchange. Okay, you won't be able to find Winnie the Pooh on Chinese Google, you won't be able to find Xinjiang concentration camps. But you will be able to find information about democracy, economy, physics, law, sociology, psychology, art, literature! It's equally important to let normal people of China access better information. China is incredibly high-tech and innovative, but the Chinese internet is extremely low-quality. Google is necessary here to provide the fertile soil on which thinkers can raise and start questioning their political status quo.