Ellie Scripps
POL 242
David Yamanishi
Start of Final Paper

China, Google and The Great Firewall What will it take to get China to take down the Great Firewall that regulates the Chinese peoples ability to access all Internet freely? China is a nondemocratic, authoritarian state that has expanded its communications infrastructure and is pushing for expansion in information technologies for economics, yet they still insistent on their censorship of the Internet. Google is a search engine Internet superpower that surprised the world by ending their four yearlong Internet presence in China in 2010. The dispute between Google and China is like the Unstoppable Force Paradox between the unstoppable force and the immovable object. China is the immoveable object and Google is the unstoppable force. Both are aware that they are indestructible and that they are at a stand still. By examining Chinas adaption into technology, the Great Firewall, China and Google’s relationship from the beginning to the end, why Google decided to part ways from China and the effects that the censorship the Chinese government has placed on the internet could have on their economic standing, I hope to prove that ultimately Google is the unstoppable force and China will have to move. In 1979 China began its increase in industrial and technological modernization and embraced a new concept of “opening to the outside world” (Deibert,145, Deng Xiaoping). The technological modernization and new reform concentrated on expanding trade, foreign direct investment and cultural exchanges, “moved China dramatically away from isolation ” and into a dominating Chinese economy (Deibert, 145). The Internet became a foundation of the technology increase in China. In 1994 the Internet officially hit China and there were 23,000 users, today China has the most Internet users in the world. “The Great Firewall” otherwise known as the “Golden Shield” is China’s Internet filtering system. This system “ is the most sophisticated and extensive in the world” of its kind (Liu, 3). China’s “censorship is not only efficient but subtle” as well (Liu,4). While on the Internet if a person attempts to go on a website that isn’t preapproved, for example websites such as “the Economist, the New York Times and the Cable News Network” (Deibert,147), by the government the blocking of the website may appears as a “technical error with a ‘site not found’ screen, network timeout message” or any error code that would disallow access to a website (Liu,4). This technique makes it look like the site really never existed. The “goal” of this blocking and filtering system is to save China’s people from the negative effects of the outside world, or so we are told. But, in all likelihood this filtering is because China has “maintained control over free speech and political competition” vigorously, and the Internet is really just promoting free speech and political competition so therefore the only natural thing is to regulate and censor the internet for the Chinese people (Deibert,145). Google entered the Chinese Internet in 2006. The next year the Chinese government introduced outrageous regulations of the Internet. Unknowingly Google walked into an extremely politically charged situation where it would soon be the victims to the authoritative Chinese government. In the beginning of their relationship Google “agree[ed] to