Time to Play Hard Ball With China
Posted on January 15, 2010
Time to Play Hard Ball With China
Google did the right thing yesterday when it said enough is enough to the Chinese government.
Chinese military assets launched a coordinated cyber-attack on Google and about 30 other multi-national, mostly American companies over the last couple of weeks, probing into their data-bases and their computer systems.
There were reports that the Chinese were looking for information on human rights activists, but in actuality, they were looking to steal intellectual property from American companies.
I am growing tired of hearing about how the next century will not be an American century, about how the Chinese are on the rise, about how they are so smart and we are so stupid, blah, blah, blah.
China is not a Communist state. It is a criminal state. It steals intellectual property because it can’t produce any new ideas on its own.
That is what happens when the state limits freedom and curtails liberty. That is what happens when the state crushes political dissent. That is what happens when the state decides who gets what and who doesn’t get squat.
There is a bit of nostalgia for the kind of mass mobilization that comes with a Communist/criminal enterprise type state from the liberal left. They admire the fact that the Chinese can move people from one location to another without messy lawsuits. They admire the fact that the state can get the people to move in a lock-step to achieve objectives that the left deems acceptable.
But freedom is an essential element to progress. Because with freedom comes creativity. And from creativity comes the next Google.
The American business community has been under the illusion that China is somehow the promised land for business development, and perhaps someday it will be.
But right now, China as a land of opportunity is just an illusion. China, under the leadership of the goons who run the Communist Party, is attempting to suck the American business community dry of its ideas. They can’t create any new ideas of their own, so they have decided to steal them.
Google did the right thing. Other American businesses need to follow suit. And so does the Obama Administration.
Enough of this nice guy stuff. The Chinese are playing hardball. We invented hardball. Game on!