Perspective: The collective amnesia over Shi Tao

I've always looked forward to April, with its promise of spring punctuated by the hopeful approach of another baseball season.

For a Chinese journalist named Shi Tao, however, next month marks a different sort of anniversary: it was in April 2005 that he was sentenced to 10 years in jail for "divulging state secrets abroad."

Few in Silicon Valley recall Shi Tao, let alone the questions raised by his imprisonment. But his conviction did spark an all-too-brief debate over how the technology industry in the United States ought to comport itself in an increasingly global marketplace.

Shi Tao was prosecuted after he e-mailed foreign reporters information issued by the Chinese government warning of possible trouble around the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. From the regime's perspective, that was an unforgivable no-no. The authorities soon tracked down Shi Tao because Yahoo's Hong Kong subsidiary supplied an IP address connecting a PC to a message containing his information.

Dun them as amoral yuppies, if you like, but the plutocrats running Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco aren't responsible for changing China's behavior.

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang later said the company felt "horrible" about Shi Tao's plight, but maintained it still was "more important for us to participate, not only for economic reasons, but to be able" to help shape where the Internet industry is going in China. "You have to balance the risk of not participating. And people don't realize that being in the market every day there, and being on the ground, we are seeing changes, on the whole, for the positive."

It's easy to understand Yang's dilemma. Yahoo and other U.S. technology companies say they won't (can't?) very well walk away from business simply because of human rights issues. They must obey local laws if they want to do business in China. It's either conform or get out.

But the computer industry also faces criticism at home whenever an undemocratic government represses its citizens with American technology. Microsoft, Google and Cisco, companies that do big business in China, have been pilloried by U.S. politicians and the media because of their collaboration with Beijing.

What's frustrating is the kabukilike way this issue invariably gets played out. Here's how it works: The hired help in Washington tut-tuts for the cameras and makes sure the folks back home know they're fighting the good fight. The business leaders nod their heads in grave agreement and explain they too are working for the betterment of humankind.

But it's all insincere hoopla--on both sides--and nothing ever comes of it.

So it was that in early 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights called Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco to testify. It was quite the public roast, with the attending members of Congress making the most of the moment. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), who fought as a partisan against the Nazis in World War II, struck a pose of dignified outrage and labeled their actions "a disgrace."

There also were big promises of legislative change ahead. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, talked about an upcoming bill that would prevent U.S.-based employees of any company "from turning over confidential information to a repressive government...unless our government certifies that that information is being requested for a legitimate criminal investigation for a nonpolitical crime."

We're still waiting to see that wonderful new law. (Psst: Don't hold your breath.)

On the other side, the legal sharpies sent to Capitol Hill to defend the high-tech business had every angle covered. The congressmen did their best but still couldn't land a punch. You had to admire a rope-a-dope worthy of Muhammad Ali's best moments in the George Foreman bout.

Fact is, both sides blew an opportunity to find a way to resolve a bedeviling question. Dun them as amoral yuppies, if you like, but the plutocrats running Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco aren't responsible for changing China's behavior. Corporations are inherently conservative institutions and don't usually go out of their way to court controversy. And yet everyone knows these issues refuse to go away. So let me offer a few thoughts.

The computer business needs an agreed-upon set of guidelines. Something they can refer back to as a working document in case it comes down to a hard negotiation with another government. What will that accomplish? Maybe very little. Still, Silicon Valley would lose nothing by hashing out voluntary rules to govern its interactions with repressive regimes. Come up with a common framework that reflects the values and best practices of an industry whose products hold the potential both to unleash human potential or oppress dissent. With a little luck, Uncle Sam could help by providing diplomatic cover.

There is a precedent. In 1977, Rev. Leon Sullivan introduced a set of guidelines for U.S. multinationals doing business in South Africa. The document promoted a code of corporate conduct to support local blacks and fight apartheid from within. It didn't defeat the system by itself, but the Sullivan Principles played an important role in the struggle for equal rights in South Africa.

At a minimum, it's better than doing nothing, which is the preferred policy du jour. If I didn't know better, I'd swear this community has been struck by a bout of collective amnesia.

Meanwhile, Shi Tao has another eight years to rot in prison.

Biography
Charles Cooper is CNET News.com's executive editor of commentary.

More Perspectives

[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.