Marketshare in China ~ at what price?
Business Insider recently reported that China is trying to buy into Facebook, as the leading online social network explores plans to partner in China. If the deal goes through, China’s position is not expected to be large, but is cause for some level of concern. The Communist Party, despite three decades of economic reform, insists on its monopoly of political power. And to maintain that monopoly, the government operates as a constant watch dog of its citizens and the various forms of new internet media. A bit of irony, since the media is the government watchdog in most free democratic countries. At present, the Chinese government is in the midst of the most comprehensive crackdown on society since 1989. Chinese leaders clearly view social media as a threat to their rule, especially after watching protests around the world generated online that have rocked governments. It is common knowledge, many American companies stumble in China because the government tends to favor locals when it comes to regulations. As a result, foreign companies agree to sell the Chinese government a stake in their company, resulting in Beijing having an operational voice. Although the level of involvement may vary, censorship of some form is no doubt at the root of their demands and a rather large compromise for companies such as Facebook. Some companies like Google have taken a strong ethical stance on the subject of censorship in China, resulting in a high-profile fallout with Beijing over the matter. Then, there are companies like Microsoft, which recently partnered with China’s Baidu in order to expand its web search market share in China. Microsoft’s decision to compromise internet freedom for the sake of future profits is disappointing, and Facebook appears to be treading down dangerous waters as well – a slippery slope of business over ethics that I wanted to bring attention to.
Is Beijing’s Censorship Machine Going Hollywood?
The summer is a time for Hollywood blockbuster movies to drive audiences to the theaters all over the world, and the new Transformers movie is no exception. It recently broke the record for July 4th tickets sales in the U.S. and it’s been smashing records in many of the 110 countries around the world it’s showing in. It has already made almost half a billion dollars worldwide. However, according to CNN reports by Fareed Zakaria, it is not being shown in China, because Beijing has imposed a moratorium on new foreign films in order to encourage the Chinese people to watch a state-sponsored propaganda movie called, The Beginning of the Great Revival. The film is being released this year to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. It describes the party’s influence as having led China down a glorious path of ethnic independence, liberation, national wealth and strength. However, it conveniently left out any mention of the Great Leap Forward, the famine, the Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Square, or the cultural genocide of the Tibetan people from 1951 to the present. The Chinese Communist Party has made sure that this movie will be seen by its people. The movie is being shown in more than 6,000 theaters accompanied with massive publicity. This obvious grand scale attempt to temporarily mute the outside world while it brainwashes its people to be patriotic is very disturbing to the say the least. I have little doubt that Transformers will be shown in China at some point, but that’s not my point… The Chinese government will stop at nothing in order to censor its people, its media, the internet, the outside world, and not to mention the truth. This type of government propaganda should be brought to proper light, because when coupled with government censorship, billions of Chinese are in danger of being grossly misinformed without any ability to determine the truth for themselves.
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