Yahoo helps PRC jail journalist

Here's my take, it sucks, I'm close to a Libertarian and believes in less gov't the better. But on the other hand, this is PRC we are talking about. We know they got a lot of things that they need to go to get better human rights. However, I'm more amazed at the limited amount of outcry for when state wants to intrude privacy based on 9/11 changed everything concepts. When you look at some of the jailings of suspected terroist held without trial and all the deportation of prisoners to get tortured overseas, you begin to wonder what's going on.


My views is PRC is bad when it comes to human rights, but I've seen signs of progress, while at the same time U.S. use to be the beacon of freedom, equality and protection of rights and now I'm seeing it going in an opposite direction.

 

I am wondering how many times Reporters Without Borders wrote to US justice department or administration to inquire about that "Leak" incident, and whether they got answers. As far as I can remember, that the reporters were forced to give up source and threatened to put into jail.

I don't know about this case and all the facts behind it. Maybe my reading comprehension is poor, but my feelings is that the report implied or accused Yahoo! of supporting CCP violating human rights for profits. It's foreseeable but quite wrong. Yahoo! in China is supposed to comply with Chinese laws, which means if they were presented the order/request from court, they are supposed to provide the information, no matter whether they "think" the guy is a good guy. Please correct me if I am wrong, I believe it works that way in every other country. If Yahoo! in US provided some information of a person, who later was put in jail for "terrorism", they would probably be highly praised. But again, before Yahoo! would provide information, and the person would be prosecuted, Yahoo! wouldn't know whether that person is a terrorist, freedom fighter, undercover FBI, or just plain innocent, would they? I don't understand what's the outcry for Yahoo! here? They are supposed to make profit, and they are supposed to comply with local laws, why everything has to be treated differently, and spun endlessly, whenever the "commi china" is involved?

If people believe the guy is innocent (didn't violate Chinese law), they should seek legal means to help the guy to get decent lawyers etc. If people believe that specific law, which was applied to that person, was wrong and injustified, maybe they can write to their MPs, urge them to influence their party, to further infulence the administration, openly or privately to press Chinese law makers to change that wrong law.

Just leave Yahoo! out of this.

Disclaimer: Not a former or current employee or Yahoo!, no intent to apply for any position at Yahoo! in foreseeable future. Never owned any share of Yahoo! stocks

 

First of all, yahoo! is supposed to comply, profitable or not. As a US based company, Yahoo! doesn't enjoy superority in any other countries. Arguing that they have profit in it, doesn't make them complying laws wrong. I don't know whether you will defend a US office of a foreign company to reject order or request from US court.

Talking about disintegration of state maybe a GOOD thing, you sound like Mrs. Bush talking about those "underprevilliged" evacuees. I agree with you, that may be a good thing for lots of people, but that's not something you or me, or any other country really have a say. The people in that state get to decide that. If you feel their true voice "wanting to be seperated from China" was unheard by most people, you can certainly do something to help, but not just assume what's good or bad for them.

You are putting words in wnes' mouth by implying that he agrees 9/11 is same to Tiananmen. He simply gave you an example to show you how "6.4" is absolute TABU for CCP. When I was a student in China, although not in Beijing, but still very much involved in the movement, as many others. However, as painfully as it is to recognize that, nowadays people in China, especially those youths, they don't care about democracy. wnes was right, people in China see those students involved in "6.4" as "troublemakers". Those people, the majority of Chinese people in China now, not wnes. Outraged? Yes, but I guess I have to accept that as a fact, that's what they think, although I strongly object the notion. Thanks to CCP propaganda, thanks to actions of some of the "democratic fighters" and "leaders" in that movement after they escaped to Western countries, thanks to people's selfishness and ego, thanks to improved economy etc etc. The students in "6.4" were forgotten or misunderstood or even falsely accused, but as a matter of fact, I still believe any small step the society and government takes towards democracy, consists of their contribution. Isn't that what's the whole movement was about? To make China a better place for Chinese people, it was never about to be remembered as Heros.

By the way, "Tiananmen massacre" is good for sound bit. But in reality, although hundreds people were killed on the streets of Beijing at the night of "6.4", most of them were average citizens, none of them were shot down in the Tainanmen Square. The imfamous official said that no one was dead in the Square, draw outrage worldwide. But theoretically, he didn't lie, he just told the partial truth (on the countrary, the famous or imfamous female student leader, who suggested that someone had to shed blood to wake up public and she's too important to do so, lied by saying she witnessed fellow students were smashed by tanks steps away. I believe she's now back in Beijing in some internet businesses after she got the US citizenship.) What he didn't tell was that hundreds people were gunned down elsewhere. Just another example of how partial truth could hurt people even worse than plain lies. Continue to call it "Tiananmen massacre" is not such a good idea, because the general Chinese public will have the perception that you are lying, which would prevent them from even listening to whatever you are trying to preach.

 

Took another look today at the reports on the imprisonment of this Chinese journalist for passing "top secret" to foreigners via Yahoo email account. The gist of all the hoopla is really about what is considered "top secret".

Incidentally, yesterday morning I heard a segment of National Public Radio program talking about something called the State Secret Privilege.

After 9/11, the U.S. government is classifying documents faster than ever before. At the same time the Bush administration is more often using the State Secret Privilege in cases involving "national security" in the War On Terror.

Actually there is a story behind the origin of the State Secret Privilege.

In 1948 an Air Force plane crashed in Georgia, nine men died, among them four civilians. Three of their widows sued to get the accident report. The government argued that releasing documents related to their deaths would threaten national security, and it won. The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the government in what's known as "U.S. versus Reynolds".

Several years ago, the documents containing the information related to this accident investigation were declassified. The children of the dead finally had a look at those half century-old documents, and they say they can find nothing at all that relates to national security. They charge the government with a cover-up, and in so doing suggest that the case that underpins the government's right, aka the "State Secrets Privilege", to keep so many secrets, is based on a fraud.

Between 1953 and 1976, in the height of Cold War, the State Secrets Privilege was used sparingly - for a grand total of 4 times, however, after 9/11, it has been invoked mind-boggling 23 times. The courts sided with the Bush administration every single time.

Well, you see, every government, from the evil Chicom to the I-am-holier-than-thou U.S. government under GWB, has reasons to classify what it considers "state secrets" at any time, whether they deserve to be called state secrets or not, by the "objective" standards of some "interested" and political motivated journalists:

If something is classified as "top secret", by divulging it to foreigners without authorization, the person violated the law, plain and simple. Even Mr. Shi Tao himself admitted it, according to Reporters Without Boarders:

If the U.S. government has legitimate reasons to charge and imprison someone who is deemed by the government as a threat (a terrorist, terrorist supporter, terrorist sympathizer, or whatever) to its national security in the name of WOT, so does the Chinese government, in the name of keeping social stability. As far as I am concerned, both U.S. and Chinese governments are a little bit of knee-jerking in their reactions/actions towards the "disobedient rebellions".

BTW, during 1989 student unrest in China, it was widely reported large sums of money was funneled from outside of China to the protesting student organizers. CCP didn't take it lightly - to them it was a conspiracy by foreign powers to overthrow the government in the name of "peaceful demonstrations". Put into the same situation, the U.S. government would not hesitate to use force to crush the unrest either.

 

For those who are interested, here's the link to the NPR site on "U.S. vs Reynolds" and "the State Secrets Privilege":

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4838701

 

Well hayes, more often than not, when my friends and I are discussing China, I am the one who is neutral or even on the "anti-chicom" side. However, after witnessing enough of your truly blatant anti-china hostility, I can hardly maintain any neutrality.

It takes two to tangle.

 

I've only skimmed this thread so might've missed something but here's my take on it.

I personally would hope that Yahoo would value freedom of speech and protect an informer's identity but at the same time if Yahoo doesn't cooperate with the PRC authorities they probably will not be doing business in the China. Right now China is a market of 1.2 Bil people and Yahoo needs the PRC more than the PRC needs Yahoo. So does Yahoo on principle take an action that shuts it off from the China market? If they did that while they might be politically brave but business foolish. Unfortunately Yahoo has an obligation to its stock holders to make a profit. In a case like this I don't see anything unethical about what Yahoo did but it is craven and cowardly.

The bottom line I guess is we shouldn't look to for profit corporations to be moral compasses.

 

Does anyone else find it interesting that wnes, whom started 20000 different thread on how evil, corrupt, immoral, the bush administration is.

Yet the same wnes is now defending the PRC government, even trying to rationalize their tactics in Tiananmen square.

So next time when you start a thread on how evil the Patriot Act is, maybe we will refer you back to this thread.

BTW, I am guessing wnes was born in Mainland China, now lives in US?

 

The difference is, Bush has been moving from initially "good" (if we are kind enough to give him "benefits of the doubt") to "bad" to "worse" (not far from "worst"), while Chicom is slowly progressing (say, 1 step forward, half step backward).

Any time.

Yep I am from the same city as Yao Ming. You've got a problem with that?

 

China's evolution is based on its economic development, much much more than a handful that challenge the system by sheer confrontation.

Let me tell briefly how it works:

1. More money means better education, better education leads to more awareness of civil rights and democratic decision process(such as the already in place elections on the village level).

2. More money means better education and more tools to make access to foreign stuff... by the means of travelling abroad, studying abroad, hiking on the internet ... without money those things are near impossible.

3. More money gives people more time and need to seek for civil rights. The bulging middle class of China will be a backbone of large scale social/political evolution in the future, which is already slowly taking place.

4. In seeking more money one must do business, and to do business one must be familiar with the business laws, such legal education puts many Chinese into a mindset that's not present before, including knowing what is legal rights, what is legal reponsibilities, what is legal procedures... such mindset puts the attention of the society moving towards discussion of the laws and legal process, with or without the government. People are getting more rational, rather than total obedience to a regime.

5. In seeking money laws must be refined and improved to an extent that promotes economic progress. Such change usually means involvement of legal transparency, as opinions of people must be reflected in the legislature process to make laws better. The prime example is the draft of the "Property Rights Law", which collected more than 5 thousands opinions from the public.

6. In acquiring wealth people cares much more about securing their properties, it's a great driving force towards democratization for the simple truth that a more transparent political framework protects individual rights better than a government operating in black box.

7. In process of making money, the state owned media is paying more attention to making money and less on just focusing on party lines. In fact, the slight progress of the Chinese media on government transparency is not done by the challenge of dissidents, but by the Chinese state media themselves. They want to make money, they want attention from the public, the best way is to meet the need of the people. There is competition between the state owned media. For example, there is usually several state owned newspapers in one city, and they need to test the limits and boundaries to attract more viewers. It doesn't mean they are going to actively/confrontationally/apparently express such need, but they will do what they can to squeeze a little leeway from the existing policies.

8. With all the above combined, there is first time a need on the people's side to sue the government for misconducting regulations, and there is first time a need for the government to admit that some branches can be legally challeged, as the authority of the government now partially lies whether it's capable of developing economy and maintain social stability, while before it lies exclusively whether the iron wrist can stifle dissents. Cases have been filed by people against government and won. Although the allowed legal area for such things is still limited, it's a good start.

China has already undergone a social/political evolution, spurred and maintained by its economical development. Some day China will need some dissidents to challenge the system and the government in order to make a landmark improvement, but when that day comes, it's because the evolution now taking place has accumulated enough changes to enable the social/political framework understaking the social unrest created by such dissidents. That day will come, as long as now China maintains its course.

Things are quietly going under the surface. It's a great honor for me to witness such evolution.

 

There is an interest in corporations in acting socially responsible but I think you're missing the difference between behaving socially responsible and behaving ethically / morally. Social responsibility is something that goes above and beyond standard practices and yes I agree that Yahoo isn't behaving socially responsibly. OTOH behaving ethically or morally is when the corporation involves whether the corporation is doing something outright illegal, negligent or something that would be widely considered very morally offensive to most people. Enron behaved unethically in terms that it was ripping its shareholders off. It violated the very first rule of corporate ethics by not fulfilling its duty to generate revenue for its stockholders but instead ripping them off. Union Carbide was criminally negligent in Bhopal. While IBM working with Nazi Germany was engaged in a practice that was morally offensize to most people. From what I see of this story I don't see Yahoo's actions approaching anywhere near those levels.

As I said I'm not praising Yahoo and I don't agree with this but at the same time I don't expect Yahoo to undertake an action that in and of itself isn't unethical because it doesn't violate any laws, isn't negligent and while it does offend some people in terms of scope isn't comparable tio something like working with Nazi Germany, unless your contention is that he PRC is as bad as the Nazis. At the sametime though if Yahoo didn't take this action it would shut them off from the China market. At that point Yahoo is failing in its duty to its shareholders.

Unfortunatley such conflicts in regards to doing a duty to shareholders to make a profit and social responsibility are common to business which is why I said we shouldn't necessarily be looking to corporations as moral compasses. If it isn't illegal, negligent, or immoral a corporation has a duty to make a profit even if many of us find it repugnant.

 

I have no problem, but it does explain your position on PRC a bit.

Next time when you claim US is "Not far from the worst", just remember if you were in China and blasting the Government the way you are doing to the bush administration, you'd probably be in jail.

 

That you and others haven't seen me blast the PRC government in this forum doesn't not establish one bit of the notion that I approve everything it does. Contrary to your belief, criticizing the government in China nowsdays in itself does not land one in jail. But conspiring with some foreign entity, be it an innocent-looking and "truth-seeking" news medium, a "good-hearted" religious organization, or a "democracy-spreading" country, may well spell trouble for one. As it has been pointed out by several posters here, hollow democracy, especially when being forced upon from outside of China, doesn't not resonate well with the Chinese.

BTW deepblue, what do these two characters, 深蓝, mean to you?

Yes, that is my opinion based on your "liberal" reference to Nazi Germany, and the uninhibited eagerness for a chaotic disintegration of China for the sake of "democracy", knowing full well many lives could be forever ruined in such process.

Of course it's relevant. The gaping differences between the history (and other significant aspects) of China and the Western nations are sufficient reasons for not imposing an immediate Western style democracy in China. Ironically, China today is an envy of many former Soviet Republics, whether you like it or not.

Thanks for spotting it. I clearly mistyped, and was too obtuse to get it corrected myself in subsequent reviews.

 

I already stated your comparison of Yahoo doing business in China to IBM helping Nazi Germany filter out Jews among its residents is a horrendous twist of logic and facts. If you merely want to point out possible implication of a private company acting unethically on behalf of government, there are plenty of examples to go around without the reference of Nazi Germany. As bad as PRC did to its own people during much of the last five-and-half decades, and as much as you want to see China via red lenses, speaking PRC and the brutal Nazi Germany in the same breath is as ridiculous as it gets, no matter how you spin it.

You are entitled to sticking to your eskewed view of PRC, so am I having an opinion about you.

Next time you are in China, try print on the T-shirt you wear or the business cards you distribute a Chinese translation of this: "Disintegration of China is not as bad as you think, as the Soviet Unions empirically proves. Hey, autonomous decision making for the people may even be a GOOD thing." Maybe I have been out of touch with what's going on in China for too long. Maybe there are many Chinese who think China would be better off if it were splitted into pieces. You tell me.

Perhaps you need to (re)read my post in this thread talking about "U.S. versus Reynolds". What PRC did to this journalist is no different from U.S. government invoking "State Secrets Privilege" to cover its ass in misdeeds. Both are pathetic and paranoid, however somewhat understandable (for lack of a better word) when put into context. Per your grave concern, the individual rights were trampled in favor for "nation's rights" in both cases. Irrelevant? Don't you want China to have the American-style freedom of speech in the first place? Or do you have something better in mind?

No apology necessary. I genuinely appreciated it. Usually I am pretty alert to my own mistakes in English, however I missed this one badly. Credit to where credit is due.

 

No one can be certain that no one among Chinese wants to split China. I am pretty sure that some people in China would want their province and area to be independent, for whatever reasons. But to invite them to a poll to vote whether China should be split, is to introduce the idea that a country needs to be disintegrated. I don't see any government is doing that willingly. I am pretty sure that most people in Texas DON'T want Texas to be an independent country, but I heard there might be a few who hold that idea. The same question can be asked, since there is no real danger, why didn't US goverment give Texans the choice to choose? But the real question is, why would any goverment voluntarily to offer citizens the option to split the country?

It's not ok, that Chinese government did something terrible, meanwhile some other goverments did similar things. It's not ok at all. However, from numerous posts of yours regarding China, I somehow get the feeling that you almost single out China for some common "bad practice" around the world. I would like to ask you again, whether you would praise a Chinese company in US refuse to cooperate and reject the court order from US, if the order says that the person they inquire about was suspicious of leaking secret information to foreigners, and the Chinese company simply based their rejection on their own judgement that the guy was a good guy. Would you praise that the Chinese company has high moral standard? Or you would rather say that they support "terrorism"?

Again, there is a Chinese old saying says, if you don't want something to be done to you, don't do it to others.

 

<B>Oops. Actually we do have that choice, fyi. </B>

I am not very clear about that, please elaborate more, when was it that public opinions are asked in poll, how many pieces US is supposed to split to, how the population, territories, and national treasures should be distributed.

<B>
To be fair, I have asked repeatedly if there was a middle ground for Yahoo. I see the PRC as a dinosaur of an age past. I understand that disintegration is historically a larger concern in China, more at the front of the people's mind, than in other places. I understand the current economic liberalization is good, and that is leads to more political liberalization - which is also good. Remember though that Deng was ostracized originally for his stance on reforms. Only later when he returned to power did he start the economic liberalization. In the same way he was denounced as a threat to stability, so were the Tianamen protesters. In the same way they are the vanguard of change - positive we hope. In fact, it was the fall of the totalitarian regimes in '89 that led to the crackdown in Tianamen. The CCP feared losing power if a swift movement started as it had earlier in the year in Eastern Europe. That had nothing to do with stability, because most of Eastern Europe tranisitioned peacefully - it was to maintain their own power. I don't agree with that. I understand totalitarian regimes often use stability as the excuse to continue in power and to continue doing the bad things totalitarian regimes do. If the US was a totalitarian state I would at least hesitate to endorse a Chinese company giving dissidents names to that state - for them to be persecuted.
</B>

So in other words, if you are doing business with a totalitarian country, you don't follow any law and order, just make your decision based on your own judgement. You don't need to comply with laws, as long as you feel you are doing the right thing, because the court is wrong all the time anyways. If you are in a democratic country, you have to follow the laws and all the orders without asking any question, because you know that the court is always right. It would be a wonder if you can do any business that way. That leads to the conclusion, one should never do business with a totalitarian country.

<B>
Good saying. If I was living UNDER a totalitarian regime, I would WANT the outside world to try and help and change that. I do not think the Chinese people are bad, or that the officials in the state are necessarily bad. But the system is, imo. I think you can trust the Chinese people with the decisions about China.</B>

Exactly, I can trust the Chinese people with the decisions about China, and I think you can and you should too. They decide what's good or bad for them, without us telling them whether China should be disintegrated or not, whether split the country into several pieces a good thing or not. You are right, people living UNDER a totalitarian regime WANT the outside world to HELP them to change it. But if I was one of them, I would NOT want outside people to lecture me what kind of life I have to have, I would not want those people to tell me in how many pieces my country must be splited to. If I lived under Sadam's regime, I would blame Sadam and US at the same time. For US supported Sadam to get in power at the first place, Sadam dictated my life and brutally treated my neighbours. But I would also blame the sanction led by Western countries, for I was the direct victim of the sanction. If Sadam had 10 dollars before, he spent 4 dollars on his army and his own trusted people, another 6 dollars in the general population. After the sanction, he only got 5 dollars, he still spent those 4 dollars on his military and his people, but only had 1 dollar left for us general public.

I strongly agree with your last paragraph, that people should and can trust others with the decision about themselves and their countries.