Comments on: Google comes of age in China

By: In defence of the right to PR representation | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:50:37 +0000

[...] Of course, one could argue that in China PR firms mostly represent Chinese companies, rather than the state. Except that would be dishonest. In China the state owns most major companies and still commands the economy. It also gets its claws, admittedly indirectly, into the Western firms which operate there. (See Google comes of age in China.) [...]

By: Muse on Egypt and SM | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman's online review

Muse on Egypt and SM | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman's online review — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 12:46:36 +0000

[...] of nation states, it ceases to be a viable business. That’s a challenge I examined in Google comes of Age in China, where I pointed out how Google’s idealism is tempered by its dependence on access to an [...]

By: Paul Seaman

Paul Seaman — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:59:36 +0000

BTW: Spiked-online is holding a four-week online debate on Google and the issue of privacy. The latest contribution is by Tory MP Robert Halfon who argues that we need to stop internet companies from creating their own surveillance society. Anyway, the debate for and against Google can be reviewed here:

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/debates/google_home/

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:34:07 +0000

Lots of websites are blocked in China and the list keeps changing from day to day. To keep updated with which they are, check out http://www.greatfirewall.biz

By: Edward

Edward — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:20:52 +0000

Evil is a relative thing, China is not a democracy, but look what happened to Russia when it liberalized itself: meltdown. Democracy works when institutions are strong. China is no different to Russia and so going down the third way of unleashing capitalism while keeping an iron grip on internal affairs is the best route for the medium term. Yes there are problems with Tiananmen square, Falun gong etc. but it is far better than the mess that it could be.

Within that situation and suspicion of foreign monopolies and the elite’s fear of political implosion you cannot expect anything other than the crass handed way that they dealt with Google, where nearly all the state bureaucracy were brought up with a cold war mentality. China was not doing evil, it was in its mind protecting itself. It needs to adjust it opinion on what is a threat and what is not, and that unfortunately could take a very long time.

On this specific point, if the Chinese rescinded Google’s operating license, it would have caused big headaches politically with the US who are suffering with their massive trade deficit, and perceived Chinese currency manipulations. It is good that cooler heads prevailed.

By: Tweets that mention Google comes of age in China | 21st-century PR issues › Paul Seaman's online review -- Topsy.com

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:49:26 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Shonali Burke and paulseaman. paulseaman said: On my PR blog now: Google comes of age in China http://ow.ly/2a5fT @google [...]