Comments on: The collective amnesia over Shi Tao

CNET News.com's Charles Cooper says Silicon Valley would do well to borrow a page from the history of the antiapartheid struggle.

[SamoUmer]

Learn The Easiest, Safest Way To Make a Fortune In China

Investing in China

;-)))

"freedom" is great if your dont have a choice to earn a living. Shi
Tao is dead capital, going nowhere. Click the ad for more info ;-)

[chris_tusk]

The Sullivan Code

I'm glad you remember the Sullivan Code. As a South African, I remember the wonderful work that was done by companies like IBM SA in the skills development of black South Africans. Despite laws that ensured that blacks couldn't do be trained to be nothing more than messengers, engineers and other skilled individuals were produced by these companies that chose to follow the Sullivan Code. Companies like Yahoo! would give a lesson or two to the Chinese government about respect for the rights of their citizens.

[perfectblue97]

Read It

I've read the abstract that Shi Tao was jailed for emailing. If it's accurate, it says a lot about how bad things are in China and how restrictive the media is.

The document actually instructs newspaper heads not to express any opinions that is different from the governments, and to spy on colleague whom they suspect of having contact with of speaking to overseas democracy groups.

[ghostofitpast]

Simple solutions to complex problems

This article was well-timed, not because of the anniversary but because of the lengthy but perceptive study of the "human rights" question by Samuel Moyn posted at the site for THE NATION yesterday:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/moyn

We all know H. L. Mencken's quip: For every complicated problem, there is a simple solution; AND IT IS WRONG! Professor Moyn took up a lot more column space that Mr. Cooper did, so the printed page may be more suitable than the screen for reading him. However, he is worth reading, particularly by those who might choose to follow up on Mr. Cooper's recommendation for guidelines. This is not because Professor Moyn argues against such guidelines but because he lays out a road-map of the past and present of human rights issues that will provide an essential sense of scope to anyone serious about drafting those guidelines. For all the flaws of the STATUS QUO, it is always important to consider whether ill-informed action is worse than no action at all.

[mwillia]

Informed Solutions

While it is true that ill-informed actions can backfire, that's all the more reason to GET informed and for those who ARE informed to formulate a plan that can work. There is not a simple solution to this problem - but that's not to say there is no solution at all.

[leaglebob]

Actually, it is QUITE SIMPLE

I'll post back if reading the referenced article changes my mind *but* this is ever so simple. You can be moral or immoral; you can be a conscientious human being or a business.

If you don't want to be a tool of a repressive government, then don't do business with them; or, as Congress, make a law prohibiting it. If you prefer to make money, then do so, but we should not pretend the issue or the answer is "complicated." It is merely a choice.

[Tom_E]

Amnesty International Link

Shi Tao is an Amnesty International special focus case. See http://www.amnestyusa.org/action/special/******.html for supportive actions

[i_made_this]

Baby Tech Remains "China-Clueless"

...there's no turning back these tech companies' clocks. What's done is done. None of them are innocent and all complicit in their desire to embrace a totalitarian state's style of handling guanxi firms - comply or die. They've embraced their complicity - leadership, even - in helping the China government apprehend those criminals who made the mistake of speaking freely. But China reality - as players plying the China trade in far more ancient industries than tech well know - is that China will never let these guanxi firms make a ton of money on the endless China consumer. What these master gamesmen at MSFT, YHOO, GOOG, etc don't understand yet is that they're there right now for one reason only - because China at this moment in time wishes it so. When the time comes in tech for these firms to start to turn a profit in China, oops - wait til they see what China has in store regarding the non-export and transfer of profits made inside China. Let's see how much Redmond wishes to stay there when they learn all profits must be retained internally in China.

[flashfast]

Yahoo guilty!

Google refused to soperate with dept homeland security didnt it?
Yahoo obviously is not a police force for China but obviously is
collaborating without regret, except for loss of income. Ouch.
But then I suppose there not as bad as those meaningful
'christians' who love the death penaly. Maybe they work for
yahoo.

[Danieldfacemyer]

Shame over Shi Tao

A very well place article and an important, timely and the called for response needed is from the Tech World.

[gggg sssss]

blackmail

If the western tech world ever refuses to co-operate with China, China has only to put an export embargo on disk drives, or memory chips, or heck, even CPU fans, for a month. The whole western tech industry will grind to a halt and western governments wil be on their knees begging for forgiveness.

Oil at least is available from several sources, some of whom we can bomb into oblivion of need be.