[/caption]There are times when we forget, especially if we are focusing on Hong Kong, that China is still a country governed by fiat. Google knows this all too well, because it has been fighting a losing battle with Chinese officials who refused to simply let its' people have access to the internet.
AOL Daily Finance is reporting that China will not allow its' people full access to Google’s search engines unless it has the ability to block its' citizens from going to certain sites; I am surmising that China fears that its' people might be influenced with thoughts of freedom, and act out like during the events of Tiananmen Square.
China, on the other hand, may be simply protecting its' partially state owned search engine, Baidu, from Google’s competition. Google, on its part, has put up a formidable fight and even tried to make it easy for its' Chinese users to access its' search engine by way of Hong Kong…where, supposedly, the Orwellian censorship is less diligent.
But the hawk-like focus of censorship on the Mainland was the same on Hong Kong; and as a consequence, it is expected that Google will no longer have access to the Chinese market.
Early in this test of wills, Google was pressured to adhere to the principles of freedom of speech, while its' shareholders saw the prudence in trying to secure a huge swath of the Chinese internet users. What was Google to do: give up access to potentially billions of new customers, or stick with its' principles concerning freedom?
Google’s compromise of providing the Hong Kong refuge was rejected by the Chinese officials, and apparently, Google is not willing to let China censor its' search engines outright.
Google might have the moral position, but no one knows how its' majority of shareholders feel about the issue.
We may assume that Google’s position of not giving in to China censors meant that it had the assent of its' majority of share holders.
With Google stock trading north of $400 a share, the shareholders could afford to have the courage of their convictions concerning censorship.
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