This week in Shanghaiist
Last weekend, we told you that Yahoo! is now apologizing for not telling the full truth to Congress at the February 2006 hearing where Yahoo! was taken to task for its role in the conviction of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. Now both Republicans and Democrats have launched scathing attacks on Yahoo. San Mateo Democrat Tom Lantos has called Yahoo "moral pygmies", and New Jersey Republican Chris Smith compared Yahoo’s cooperation with the Chinese government to companies that cooperated with Nazi Germany during World War II.
Tech power blog TechCrunch is not the place one normally goes for political/social commentary, but we think Duncan Riley put a few things in perspective with the following paragraphs, and they're worth reproducing here:
Lets flip this around: does the committee, or for that matter the American Government believe that companies trading in the United States should ignore local laws if and when they find them morally repugnant? I doubt they would, but this is the crux of what they are suggesting, unless of course they may be so arrogant to believe that US law should be the supreme law of the entire planet. Consider if Baidu set up an American subsidiary, and the FBI subpoenaed them trying to find information on a terrorist. Would they not expect Baidu to comply with the request? If Baidu failed to comply would the Committee and US Government support them in their refusal to comply?I’m not suggesting that the Chinese political dissident in this case was a terrorist, but understand that some one advocating the overthrow of the Chinese Government is not dissimilar to some one doing the same thing in the United States, even if the two nations would disagree on categorization based on the means advocated...
China is not like Nazi Germany, even if I don’t agree with some of what the Government does there, and to suggest that it is like Nazi Germany is an insult to the victims of WW2 as well as the Chinese people. Presuming China is Nazi Germany, why is it that the United States is importing approx $280 billion of Chinese goods every year? If this committee is seriously anti-China, and this reflects the will of the Government, why does trade continue? why are Chinese companies allowed to trade in the United States and conversely US companies in China? This can be stopped: look at the current sanctions on Iran for an example.
Ultimately, Yahoo has been made a scapegoat for the flaws of US foreign policy. If the US Government is as serious as the rhetoric of this committee would suggest, they’d stop trade with China tomorrow, but that’s not going to happen, is it. The executive team at Yahoo may be on shaky moral ground, but legally they have done nothing more than be a good corporate citizen, no matter which country they operate in.
What do Shanghaiists think?
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Calling Yahoo a moral pygmy is the pot calling the kettle black.. and Duncan's response is spot on.
Where Yahoo shot themselves in the foot is that they were spineless. they could have easily turned the table on the criticism by pointing out the very point Duncan makes. Were Yahoo served a warrant by a law enforcement agency, they could be held in contempt of US court for not complying.
As far as congress's criticism and its stance go, it is bs, and the bill that is currently being considered in congress to prevent Yahoo, Google, and others from turning user records over to foreign governments is just people trying to get reelected.
A cursory review of the bill reveals that a 2 million dollar fine is the worst that can happen to Yahoo in the future.. 2 million dollars.
Weight that against their advertising revenue in China and it is pretty easy to see that their bill is nothing more than window dressing.
I'm kind of confused here. Is someone suggest that threw Shitao into jail a justifiable action? I understand compare China with Nazi is unfair, but has Duncan ever read anything Shitao wrote? He can sit in his comfy office and criticize any government official, when Shitao did the same thing... You know the rest of the story.
just a addon:
Now I start to understand why Bush can push his way through in state. thanks to people like Duncan, they "obey" the law and never question its legitimacy.
/here's some money, dont question anything else
First, Yahoo lied under oath, that is perjury.
Second, if Yahoo was required to turn over emails, they are following local law. But there is alot of speculation that Yahoo actually gave this information without PSB inquiry or request to curry favor with the CCP. That could fall under US laws barring the bribing of foreign gov'ts, in this case the bribe was with a man's life and not money or technology.
Third, China is a racial supremacy obsessed country. Look at what the kiddies are taught, 150-400 years of humiliation by barbarians who haven't realize their place below the guardians of heaven.
Fourth, I agree with Duncan that the US (and all of Europe) is hypocritical, false, hollow and bad for doing trade with China while we cursed the existence of Cuba and the USSR, curse the re-emergence of Russia as well as Venezuela's and Iran's emergence. Why this hypocrisy? Because MNCs and Wall St. saw 1.x billion potential slave laborers who would stand at attention and faithfully spout company lines, and then become 1.x billion consumers who would spend their money on consumer gibberish.
The revolution WILL be televised.
In the U.S., we hold certain values to be more important than others. One of the most sacrosanct values is freedom of speech. And there are times when it is appropriate to challenge the law on this point. Just take a look at the case of Josh Wolf, the blogger who was jailed for not obeying a court order to reveal his sources. The TechCrunch piece uses a logic that is so elementary as to be reprehensible. This notion that since we do business with China we must accept their ideology is wrong. Just look at the instances where America offers political assylum to individuals from various countries.
In general, we should respect the laws of other countries, but when those laws run counter to our highest values, we have to give pause. Freedom of speech is an important value on its own, but it must mean *something* to Yahoo. For god's sake, they're a media company.
I think this is a bold, bold move on the part of the Duncan guy. When it comes to the lives of individuals only the most deluded would speak in terms of things like Nazis, terrorists, corporate citizenship and the like. He has pulled everything out of the book in order to justify and rationalize the fact that Yahoo was a direct, active and to some, criminally complicit in the death of a human being.
Now i know that other companies have done worse and the US is not a saint - they have more dirty deals than anyone in history. But the bad actions of others does not make the actions of yahoo morally "right" in this situation. That would be like saying that one can get away with murder, cause when you compare your single murder to the amount of people Hitler helped kill, it doesn't seem that bad. It is bad, it is wrong and this apology does not sound like an apology so much as a justification for committing a morally bereft action.
I'm sorry, i wrote "death" I should have wrote "jailing."
When apartheid was going on in South Africa, many Americans demanded better behavior from US companies operating there. I think this case is pretty similar.