By Lester Haines for The
Register.
This article has been reproduced with permission.
Democrat Tom Lantos summed up the mood with: "Your abhorrent
activities in China are a disgrace. I simply do not understand how
your corporate leadership sleeps at night."
The controversy centres around Chinese state censorship and the
four companies' stance on it. Google and Yahoo! have recently
attracted much negative publicity the former for agreeing to
censor results in its Chinese search engine, the latter for
supplying details to the authorities on two "dissidents" Li
Zhi and Shi Tao who were subsequently jailed.
To underline the issue, California Republican Dana Rohrabacher
at the hearing presented Yuan Li a US citizen who writes for
a website "critical of the Chinese government" and who was beaten
up in his Atlanta apartment presumably as a result.
Rohrabacher told the assembled executives: "You have to choose
between Mr Lee [sic] and a gangster regime."
Yahoo! Senior Vice President Michael Callahan agreed the Shi Tao
matter "raises profound and troubling questions about basic human
rights", but insisted that his company had "made our views clearly
known to the Chinese government".
Google Vice President Elliot Schrage offered: "The requirements
of doing business in China include self-censorship something
that runs counter to Google's most basic values and commitments as
a company." He added that Google's Chinese search engine "respects
the content restrictions imposed by Chinese laws and
regulations".
Microsoft lobbyist Jack Krumholtz, in response to Landos'
enquiry as to whether his company was ashamed of its actions,
echoed Google's justification with: "We comply with legally binding
orders whether it's here in the US or China."
Lantos countered: "Well, IBM complied with legal orders when
they
cooperated with Nazi Germany. Those were legal orders under the
Nazi German system... Do you think that IBM during that period had
something to be ashamed of?"
Krumholtz admitted: "I can't speak to that. I'm not familiar in
detail with IBM's activities in that period."
Lantos was, ultimately, unconvinced by claims that US corporate
muscle could exert a positive force for change. "These companies
tell us that they will change China, but China has already changed
them," he said.
The Republican chairman of the committee, New Jersey's Chris
Smith, then announced his intention to introduce a bill this week
which would "formalise the goals of a new State Department task
force to help American technology companies protect freedom of
expression in countries that censor online content".
The bill, Smith explained, would include "export controls on
certain types of hardware and software and prohibit putting email
servers and other assets in countries that lack US-style due
process laws."
© The Register
2006
