http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/01/17/google-in-china-is-like-china-in-africa/ ----------------------------------------------snip China’s Ministry of Commerce spokesman Yao Jian Friday, responding to questions about Google’s fate in China, made an interesting analogy: Google in China is like Chinese companies in Africa.
What Yao tried to say was that similar to China as it has sought to expand in Africa, Google has had to adapt to local rules in China. For China as for Google (GOOG), he implied, this has not always been easy. “Recently Chinese companies operating overseas have met with a lot of problems…In Africa, [they relate to] how to respect the environment, respect local employment, respect local unions, respect local religion. These are all problems Chinese companies [expanding abroad] face,” Yao said. “Logically, these are constraints of the host country – Africa or U.S. constraints [for example]. … The core goal is to comply with the laws of the host country. Don’t create pollution for others. Don’t create environmental problems for others. Africa is a green land. We need to fix more of their roads, give them employment, education, health, etc,” he said. >From there, Yao then pointed out that China is still developing and striving to build a “moderately prosperous society,” a phrase Chinese officials often use to describe their desired level of social and economic development. He said, “All foreign investors in China, including Google, should comply with international norms, respect the rules and regulations of the host country, respect the public interest and legal traditions and shoulder social responsibility.” The implication: Google by pressing its agenda could disrupt Chinese society. Yao’s analogy doesn’t quite work. Chinese investors in Africa are involved in the extractive industry to bring oil and resources home to feed the dragon economy; their operations are not embedded in the domestic African market. Meanwhile, Google’s business is about getting netizens in China to click into its search engine. It hinges on trying to allow for the free flow of information in a major economy that is attempting to transition from years of central planning but one where the government still controls access to information. China has yet to be tested in Africa on how it would deal with a situation where a big Chinese foreign investor runs up against the rules of its host country in such a fundamental way as Google has in China. When that happens, China may find, as Google has found, that investing in a foreign country can be more complex than just following the letter of the law. -- Egosexual: Being turned on reading Ayn Rand. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
