The UK press do like to build you up and knock you down. But normally, that approach is reserved for celebrities and the gossip pages. But now even the business pages seem to be going that way. Google is getting the treatment, thanks to its agreement to provide a censored search engine for the Chinese market. The Google founders of Brin and Page set the company motto of “do no evil”, yet goes the argument, by curtailing to the Chinese government, they “forfeited the right to our trust”. Which newspaper expressed that opinion? It’s no trick question; the answer is what you would imagine. It was the Observer.
Of course there is an alternative point of view. Much of the press and indeed politician’s reaction to China’s growth seems to border on paranoia. But it could equally be argued the that the answer to China is to embrace it and let the West’s values of democracy and freedom of speech gradually work their way in. Building a great wall of our own, against China’s growing strength will do no more than delay the inevitable, but in the process we lose any form of influence.
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