China as an Imperialist
If you have been Chinese since the 1940's it's hard to imagine anyone thinking China is imperialist. Of course it is possible to say that China as capitalist would be equally shocking to Chinese society before 1980. Imperialism requires either a king or heavy handed policy. Historically war has been the direct result of this style of policy however in recent times economic sanctions also work. Take for instance the US led sanctions on Iraq. While most countries require the UN to impose economic restraints, China has the singular ability to make economic policy with it's own weight. Google's recent policy decision to self censor information fed to Chinese citizens is proof of her ability. Even though the United States does not have the same sorts of restrictions on information dissemination Google has chosen to impose restrictions on itself in order to continue diplomatic relations. It would be interesting to know whether Google has Taiwanese relationships and how they plan to explain themselves. "Taiwan Independence" is one of the restricted keywords. China is not new at imperialistic tactics. A paper from the China Quarterly, from Cambridge University Press, describes the "Macedonia Project" where China bought influence in post communist countries before Taiwan could. Countries who are UN abiding do not recognize Taiwan as a soverign country. Macedonia did recognzie Taiwan for a time as a country.* Capitalist nations follow their corporations. Corporations follow the revenue. Any percentage point higher then one from the overall population represents a large potentional of revenue from China. The Japanese idiom that "business is war" could be taken literally here. As our nations corporate players jockey around the Internet our governments bend policy to their will. In this case the pronoun "their" is entirely subjective and could be the government's will (presumbly linked to the people) or the corporation's will (presumbly linked to the shareholders). If the government were to enact a policy that stated "corporations could not create policy that would be illegal to enact on citizens of the United States" then entities like Google and Yahoo would be bound to comply. There would also not be a financial risk to them since the US government would be responsible, and the ultimate defendant, in legal action. Until that time China will have the ability to bend corporate policy to her own will regardless of that company's own laws.
* Canada currently favors Taiwan with diplomatic level relations. The US officially
recognizes “One China” but continues to sell fighter jet and submarine technology
to Taiwan.
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