If you cut through much of the official Chinese reaction surrounding Google’s possible departure from China, the central point is this: “Whatever the real cause for Google’s possible move, this case is purely business in nature and it should have nothing to do with political ideology. If this Internet giant has political values, it should never have been involved in such a business.” That sentiment—which appeared in this case in a China Daily editorial but has been expressed widely—gets to a fundamental question that much of China’s business and political class has yet to reconcile: Can, or should, a company have a political ideology?
The reaction in China to Google’s actions have ranged from resentment to admiration, but perhaps the most frequent theme is downright bafflement that an American company would abandon the prospect of future business in China over high-minded notions of how a company should act. After Google, the responsibility for setting the boundary of government interference will fall to firms like Baidu. The caricature of Baidu is that it is blithely content to do whatever authorities demand. Perhaps, but I suspect the reality is more complicated—and we will discover if that’s the case in the months to come—but, for the moment, I was struck by a recent posting on the blog of Baidu’s chief product designer, Sun Yunfeng. His posting was promptly censored, but it is circulating on the Chinese Web and stirring discussion. I’ve chosen and translated some excerpts: