AsiaPundit honestly did not expect the shutdown of Michael Anti’s blog to cause as much of a global outrage as it did. Blogs are deleted regularly in China. Papers are censored. Magazines are pulled off the shelves. Satellite television signals are blocked. Journalists are arrested, detained and jailed. This is all quite normal. (There’s nothing new to see here, move along.)

The outrage from Reporters Without Borders could be expected. It’s also normal for the New York Times and Washington Post to run outraged editorials. But it’s fairly new to see a top columnist for business newswire Bloomberg call for a boycott:

Would a Hong Kong-based economist publishing a report suggesting China understates GDP be committing a crime against the state? How about a journalist or a blogger getting leaked information about a politician or a company doing dodgy things? No one knows for sure.

Censorship is a sign of weakness, not strength. It’s also a reminder that China lacks a key economic ingredient: self- confidence.

Along with being one of the world’s oldest civilizations, China is the most populous nation and remains the fastest-growing major economy. And yet China expends so much energy controlling what’s said about it.

Technology companies claim they need to follow local laws where they operate and they’re in a tough spot in China. Western companies need to bend over backward to get a foothold in capitalism’s latest frontier. Yet in their giddiness over future profits, they can go too far. Corporate America may be doing just that in China.

Let’s Boycott

Why, with all his wealth and global prestige, isn’t Microsoft founder Bill Gates standing up to Beijing? Why isn’t Google taking that $467 share price out for a spin and challenging China? Why is a global household name like Yahoo bowing to a repressive regime? Companies seem to think their mere presence will help open China. That’s just bunk.

“Microsoft, Yahoo and others are helping to institutionalize and legitimize the integration of censorship into the global IT business model,'’ said Rebecca MacKinnon, a former Beijing bureau chief for CNN now specializing in Web censorship.

It’s all futile, though. China will find it harder and harder to police fast-changing technologies and fast-learning bloggers. All Chinese consumers may remember years from now is how the biggest names in technology once helped keep them down. Along with a Chinese firewall, they may be creating barriers between themselves and future users.

I’d like to see the country’s consumers boycott Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and others. It’s just not clear that the message would reach many in China.

Pesek’s views, as the Bloomberg site states, are his own.

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