Forbes.com Reports on Congressional Hearings on the Internet in China

(Clearwisdom.net) Forbes.com published an article entitled, "Chinese Delicacy" on February 15, 2006, covering the recent U.S. congressional hearings on the operations of American information technology companies in China. Members of Congress hope that Internet companies make a choice between righteousness and evil, and not forsake good for the sake of gold.

The article asks whether four Internet companies including Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Cisco are "conduits of free speech or accomplices to torture and oppression?"

According to the article, "On Wednesday in a charged hearing before the House subcommittee on human rights, executives of the four tech giants were taken to task by lawmakers who accused them of bowing to Chinese censors and, in the case of Yahoo, cooperating with the secret police in order to cash in on the lucrative Chinese market."

The article quoted the accusations of Congressman Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, of the tech giants, "Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply don't understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night."

"That makes you a functionary of the Chinese government," were the words of Congressman Jim Leach, an Iowa Republican, to Google Vice President Eliot Schage, after Schage described how Google set up a computer in China in order to learn which sites to censor for the China-based search engine it launched last month.

The article quoted the stance of these tech giants, who say that they are doing good by working to open up China, but they're not responsible for any of the bad things that the Chinese government does. "Yahoo tried to wash its hands of any blame for handing over details to authorities that led to the arrest and jailing of a Chinese journalist. Both Microsoft and Google said they had little choice but to comply with the laws of the country in which they are doing business."

According to the article, "lawmakers were generally unmoved by this last argument. 'If the secret police asked half a century ago where Anne Frank was hiding, would the correct answer be to hand over the information to comply with the local laws?' asked Rep. Chris Smith, the New Jersey Republican and chair of the subcommittee on human rights."

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., used the case of Dr. Peter Yuan Li, who testified before Rep. Smith's hearing. Li, a Falun Gong practitioner who was recently assaulted by Communist Party agents in his own home, has been interviewed by the FBI as part of an investigation into intimidation of Falun Gong practitioners on U.S. soil.

Rohrabacher argued that "the choice was between Americans like Li who stood up for principles of freedom, or a 'gangster regime that beats people up and [commits] heinous acts of oppression against its own people. It's your choice. Unfortunately, it appears like corporate America and you gentlemen have made the wrong decision.'"

The article concluded by stating that Congressman Smith is proposing legislation that would establish a basic code of conduct for Internet companies operating in repressive countries and require them to locate their e-mail servers offshore to make it tougher for authorities to seize personal information. Such legislation would also establish an "Office of Global Internet Freedom," which would combat Internet censorship.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/2/18/121119.html

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