William J. Holstein

Many American Companies Make Compromises in China
MARCH 13--

There's a lot of talk about how Google is making an ethical compromise by agreeing to filter out certain content from Internet searches performed by Chinese web-surfers. But Google is hardly the only company that had to make this kind of deal with China's ruling elites.

Every company involved in supplying Information Technology, whether software or hardware, and every telecommunications company has had to make the same trade-off. American companies involved in building China's telephone system, both fixed and wireless, have been obliged to provide the tools to the government to allow it to monitor and intercept. Microsoft's software and other software have backdoors that allow monitoring.

If American companies are going to operate in China, which I think they must, then they have to play by the rules that Chinese authorities have established. They are not there to challenge the Communist Party. They are there to make money and support good jobs at home and pay nice dividends to investors. To suppose that Beijing is going to allow the Internet to undercut Communist Party control is very naive.