Hacker News Reader

> If Google is there (1) they can minimize censorship as much as possible by pushing back frequently

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.

> 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.

Taiwan is a counterexample.

Not a good example though. Many Chinese see the current Taiwan government as a failure and use it as an argument that China should NOT adopt western democracy

"Many Chinese"... where did you get this number from?

By talking to people and reading online. I'm Chinese btw.

That is surprising since Taiwan eclipsed China in technological development and its GPD per capita is over 5x larger than Chinas.

edit: despite economic pressure from China.

But why should they have a realistic impression if information is controlled?

Because Taiwan was much more prosperous in the last few decades of last century, before Taiwan fully embraced western democracy and started having two ruling parties. Now, however, with Taiwan's economy/average wage being almost stagnant for almost twenty years, and the huge mess in the Taiwan politics, it is hard to see anything good came out of "democracy".

> 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.

So what? Many Chinese people also see Taiwan as a success.

It all comes down to economics. The population is OK with the CCP's policies because they brought unprecedented growth. The GDP growth chart since the cultural revolution is really almost hard to believe. The part of the population that's profiting from this development happens to be large enough to lead to a somewhat stable political situation.

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 this can happen in a blink of an eye the fall of the berlin wall for example.

And I suspect the fate of Ceausescu must weigh on the minds of the party leaders.

Do Chinese political prisoners feel lees pain when they get tortured? Do their family and friends feel less of a loss if they get killed? Would the people who look away swap with those they sweep under the rug, yes or no?

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

> 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.

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-...

> If Google is there (1) they can minimize censorship as much as possible by pushing back frequently

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.

>(2) people in China benefits from access to much better search and subsequently gets better educated over time.

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.

Two ways of looking at it. Many see it as a betrayal of Google's ideals. They left in 2010 because there was a breach in gmail originating from government affiliates and consequently endangering customers. Also, it the west this was perceived as a stand against human rights issues in China. So now a reentry looks like they are backtracking from that stance.

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.

You should talk to your government then. Nobody is against Google going back to China. It is about Google developing and supporting censorship (tools),

The Chinese government is uninterested in letting Western companies compete on the same ground as Chinese companies (e.g. any company with a significant market share in China vs their foreign counterparts doing business).

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.

Agreed with you. I'm not delusional to think Google's attempt of entry is "for Chinese people", just that practically it will help. And most importantly, it won't do more harm (some other people in this thread mentioned that it may help them to "export" censorship tool to other countries, which is a valid point.)

On the other hand, I don't feel Google's departure from China in 2010 was purely based on ideals either.

As I stated in a comment questioning what possible impact this project could have: "My primary motivation is fighting these types of capitulations becoming precedents. If an American tech company will willfully aid the CCP in preventing information on human rights from spreading and build tools for a nationwide dragnet, what would they ever stand up for?"

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).

Not that the extreme methods are morally justified, but FLG is basically Chinese Scientology with the homophobic pieces as well as convincing people to forgo modern medicine for prayer. People die from it. Anti-Vax isn’t even that popular in the US and people are already clamoring for parents to be locked up.

The Chinese government keeps camps of Falun Gong to harvest organs from. The fact that their religion is problematic is not even close to relevant in the face of their oppression.

The only thing Google has any interest in minimizing in China is the percentage of the search/ad market outside of their control.