You push back against the Party in China, you're out of business. It is common knowledge that being in good terms with party officials is a prerequisite for any really successful company in China.
Taiwan is a counterexample.
This is obviously supported by extremely authoritative measures from government. Just look at what's happening in Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan. Imagine now, what happens when the growth engine stops or even reverses. The population might be much less accommodating to restrictive policies like the social credit system.
And I suspect the fate of Ceausescu must weigh on the minds of the party leaders.
edit: despite economic pressure from China.
But why should they have a realistic impression if information is controlled?
> But why should they have a realistic impression if information is controlled?
They may not know Taiwan well enough, but on average they know it much better than westerners.
I for one judge people who look away by the facts, not the facts by others looking away, and after over half a century of killing political dissidents, the people who live now aren't the ones I would ask for direction. I would ask the ones that got killed first, if anyone.
> Think of all the things kids could have found out about science and western literature by better search that they currently aren't.
I first and foremost think of all the western literature, and more importantly history, I read and understood. I go by what I know for a fact, not by what others don't know yet. I don't "assume they want democracy", I know for a fact that I must not participate in totalitaranism, and won't break bread with those who do, or who offer it fig leaves.
Our intellectual and moral tradition, and the responsibilities that history places on us, is as it is. People can cut themselves off from it by ignoring it, to avoid a bit of friction here and get a bit of money or tourism there, but in the end that's just a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mess_of_pottage
Depends on the culture. Currently the Chinese government is doing its best to eradicate certain cultures and put their adherents in concentration camps[1].
It isn't just a censorship issue. Dragonfly would help put people in camps.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-...
The CCP doesn't value Google, and they will ban them if they "push back." If Google wants to operate in China, they will have to be the most slavish of lackeys.
You're also ignoring the leverage the CCP will gain over Google's non-PRC operations by allowing them in. It's not hard to find recent examples of the CCP/PRC using economic leverage on foreign companies to make them fall in line with its political positions (e.g. representation of Taiwan on airline websites, treatment of Tibet and the Dalai Lama, etc.). I think the most important aspect of Project Dragonfly is that leverage.
This is the point I rarely heard here, or any Western communities.
As a Chinese, I was genuinely baffled when I first heard that there are people actually boycotting the re-entry of Google in China, instead of celebrating this milestone. I thought we can finally have a usable search engine.
I guess we get in the way of ideality. Oh well.
Entering China at the cost of 1) having to hand over personal information wholesale to the Chinese government in compliance with "local laws" (remember not to look at Xinjiang!) and 2) being forced into a losing position against local competitors like Baidu anyway is neither ethically great nor financially prudent.
In any case, Google is acting only in the interest of profit (as a for profit company beholden to shareholders), and painting it as some kind of great privilege for China to be receiving is big-headed on Google's part and a saccharine narrative justifying a purely business decision to make more money.
On the other hand, I don't feel Google's departure from China in 2010 was purely based on ideals either.
On the other hand, as you say, a purely pragmatic view is that it wouldn't make the situation worse if they offer a censored search engine, because that's the only thing (most) Chinese users get now anyway.
google.com exists and serves Chinese queries. If the Chinese Communist Party wants to continue blocking that because they don't like their citizens learning about human rights or Nobel prizes (yes, that is literally on the blacklist), then that is their option. But, for an American tech company to actively aid them for profit is a bridge too far.
I refuse to help normalize what I now know to be a history of American tech companies committing human rights abuses in exchange for access to foreign funding (with Cisco's creation of a surveilance and torture-management system targeting the Falun Gong being a particularly disturbing example).
Consider the fact that vast majority of search queries will not be affected by the censorship. Your actions are depriving billion+ people from these queries. Think of all the things kids could have found out about science and western literature by better search that they currently aren't.
Finally, I would to leave a note on cultural aspects. Being in western world, we assume that every culture in the world wants democracy. We firmly believe that every culture resents censorship. From my contact with many asian folks, I have changed my assumptions and such belief. Chinese culture is fundamentally different. Government is not looked at some agency that people allowed to govern but rather an agency that is charted to protect culture even if it is at the expense of individualism. My theory is that even if Chinese government was toppled, the replacement would still have same characteristics because that is the expectation that people have from their government.