September 14, 2005
Opinion : Commentary
Imagine what would have happened if during the 1980s an American
communications company had provided information that allowed the South African
government to track down and imprison an anti-apartheid activist. That is pretty
much the moral equivalent of what Yahoo has just done in China in the case of
journalist Shi Tao. And the California-based Web giant deserves the same kind of
public opprobrium that would have fallen on any Western firm that dared to
publicly cooperate with the enforcers of apartheid.
Shi, the victim of Yahoo's shameful behavior, was sentenced to 10 years in jail
for "illegally sending state secrets abroad." Shi was a reporter for a
Chinese newspaper, Contemporary Business News. His crime consisted of e-mailing
to a New York-based website information about a supposedly secret directive his
newspaper had received from the state propaganda department telling it how to
cover the 15th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The security
services were able to track him down thanks to information helpfully provided by
Yahoo's Hong Kong affiliate, whose e-mail service Shi used.
Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang breezily defended his company's role: "To be
doing business in China, or anywhere else in the world, we have to comply with
local law." I wonder how far Yang would take that logic. What if local law
required Yahoo to cooperate in strictly separating races? Or the rounding up and
extermination of a certain race? Would Yang eagerly do the government's bidding
in those cases too?
Granted, the Chinese communist regime may not be as odious as apartheid South
Africa, Nazi Germany or Taliban Afghanistan. But it's bad enough. As summed up
in the State Department's most recent human rights report: "The [Chinese]
government's human rights record remained poor, and the government continued to
commit numerous and serious abuses." These included "instances of
extrajudicial killings; torture and mistreatment of prisoners, leading to
numerous deaths in custody; coerced confessions; arbitrary arrest and detention,
and incommunicado detention."
The State Department estimates that at least 250,000 people and possibly as many
as 310,000 are serving sentences in "reeducation through labor" camps
and "other forms of administrative detention not subject to judicial
review." The subjects of such crackdowns have included labor, religious and
political activists, including Tiananmen Square protesters (at least 250 of whom
remain behind bars) and Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and Falun Gong
[practitioners]. And, shades of apartheid, a particular focus of official ire
has been ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet who are harshly
persecuted for complaining about their lack of equal employment and educational
opportunities. So this is the kind of regime whose laws Yahoo shows such great
respect for. Unfortunately, its conduct is not out of the ordinary, either for
it or for other American media firms operating in China. They all eagerly kowtow
to a despicable police state.
Yahoo, Google, MSN and other Web search engines have agreed to block searches in
China involving words such as "Tibetan independence" or "human
rights." Bloggers can't post messages involving "democracy" or
other "dangerous" concepts. Rupert Murdoch's Star TV has agreed not to
carry BBC news or other information that the Chinese government might not like.
Cisco has sold Beijing thousands of routers programmed to monitor Internet usage
and flag for the secret police any "subversive" sentiments.
There is a theory that greater access to information technology will further
freedom in China. The reality is that the communist oligarchy is adroitly using
the Internet to increase its level of control with the help of its American
business partners.
The conduct of Yahoo et al should be illegal. The Commerce Department, and if
necessary Congress, should forbid American firms from facilitating human rights
abuses in China. Unfortunately, the Bush administration would probably block
such rules because it continues to cling to the vain hope that Beijing will
solve the North Korean nuclear crisis for us. The only pressure the
administration is interested in applying at the moment is to get Chinese firms
to stop selling us so many bras.
In lieu of government action, private investors should step into the breach.
Recall how, in the 1980s, shareholders agitated for U.S. corporations to
"disinvest" in South Africa or, if they did invest there, to at least
follow the Sullivan Principles - created by a Baptist minister and GM board
member, Leon Sullivan, in 1977 - mandating good corporate behavior. We need a
similar campaign today to convince Yahoo and its ilk that helping to oppress a
fifth of humanity does not make good business sense.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-boot14sep14,0,701269
1.column?coll=la-util-opinion-commentary
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