I guess it is hard for western companies to have a positive influence within China unless they have a presence in the country.

Still, the company should only stay if it feels that: (a) there is a strong business case for staying (most important); and (b) it can play a more constructive role (in terms of benefiting users, employees and Chinese society as a whole) through maintaining a continued presence in China than it could through any moral stand which caused it to leave the country.

Difficult decision.

China explains most of it’s censorship as trying to protect citizens from porn. In the more free world we know that it is difficult to censor one form of speech without stepping on the toes of another. In China I assume that the porn issue is a handy way to censor political speech – but that doesn’t mean the majority of their population understand this. Free speech is something we have come to live with – but it’s only been 50 or so years since the post office in the U.S. was actively searching for porn and prosecuting folks who mailed it across state lines. Pin-up magazines like Playboy and Hustler regularly walked a line that the majority accepted.

So when Google leaves all that is left is the Chinese search company, leaving no one to provide the pressure for more openness that our culture believes is right and good.

There is certainly hope for China and there is precedent in the area as well – South Korea.

After the Korean War, South Korea had a poverty level equivalent to that of some of the worst African countries. Then, around about the 1970′s the country underwent massive economic development under a visionary but still dictatorial military leader. So the South Korea of around 1980 was roughly equivalent to the China of today – becoming economically developed but still suffering from lack of political freedom, with the crushing of any form of dissent.

But things changed again throughout the 90s and today, the country enjoys full and proper freedom in virtually all aspects of life: political freedom, economic freedom, religious freedom and freedom of expression. Better yet, freedom and economic development have not come at the expense of their core values, like Confucianism (a philosophy on how individuals should behave and act as part of a society) and social harmony.

So the Koreans have found a way blend in freedom and economic development without compromising the core values which define them as a society. The Chinese have a wonderful example from a close neighbor. Let’s hope their story follows a script along similar lines.

That’s an interesting observation.

I suppose one of the reasons why oil companies in particular who operate in the middle east and elsewhere cop so much criticism relative to firms with substantial operations in China may boil down to the nature of oil and mining activities and the extent to which they directly impact local communities.

Exploratory and production related activities do tend to have a very large impact in themselves upon local areas in which they operate, not only from a strictly environmental perspective but also in terms of the effect on local agriculture and potential displacement where land grabs occur in order to make way for drilling. Also, most of the output is consumed by the rich world, with local communities seeing very little in terms of direct benefit of usage for the finished product.

I’m sure there are land grabs etc. in China too, but from what I understand (correct me if I’m wrong), a lot of the investment taking place there is going into manufacturing and assembly of final products, activities which, by their nature, are not as disruptive to local communities as oil drilling and exploration. And with many companies now manufacturing in China for the domestic Chinese market as well as export, ordinary Chinese citizens are starting to benefit from their output as consumers.

(I am, of course, over-generalizing quite a bit)

Obviously given the flagrant disregard of human rights shown by the Chinese government in recent years, the operations there of multi-nationals deserve should be placed under some scrutiny. But as long as manufacturing and other activities in China are more directly beneficial/less directly harmful than the exploratory activities in the Middle East, I guess they will continue to receive less criticism.

I personally would not criticize any company for choosing to invest in China per se. It’s a huge market and companies which observe basic human dignity in their own operations should not, I don’t think, feel any guilt about exploiting their opportunities in the country. After all, companies can only control what they do. They are not responsible for government misbehavior.