The differing views on the Google-China row around the world are quite striking. Most interesting is the different conception of rights, which no one seems to state, but are worth pointing out here.
In the Daily Telegraph, Shane Richmond writes:
Google has come to the right decision in pulling out of China. However, its reason for doing so seems trivial compared to the human rights abuses it ignored to be there in the first place. It leaves me wondering whether there is more to this decision than we know.
In contrast, an editorial in China Daily contends:
As we all know, each country has its own rules. There is no such a thing as absolute freedom. This Internet company, with its operation in many countries for many years, should have more than enough knowledge that there can't be absolute freedom on the Internet, either. There is also no freedom for an Internet company to upload novels without notifying the writers and paying them.Does Google have such freedom in the United States? It certainly doesn't. Then why does this company want to have its own way in China? There is no reason for the Chinese government to allow Google to do whatever it wants to do simply because it is an American company.
Implicit in each of these viewpoints is a fundamental conflict on property rights. In the western conception, as typified by the Telegraph, property rights are a function of individuals. Information should be publicly available, and the government should not have any say in it. Also implicit is the right of a creator of information to publicize his or her creation, and the responsibility of the government to protect their rights to remuneration and creative control over that creation.
However, a striking contrast comes in the Chinese editorial, where rights are primarily vested in the state. In this conception, any restriction is a function of the state, so copyright law and censorship are both justified. It's therefore not a conflict to say that the state protecting copyright law is the same as censorship, because from the state's perspective, they are both powers of the state.
