rss feedGoogle, China: Yes, let’s say it, “Oh, my”
I remember a time, in the 1990s or so, when Chinese leaders looked at successful Western companies and said: We must learn from you.
This was done in the context of China’s economic trajectory, from moving from a developing status to a more developed one.
Many Western business leaders were treated like superstars in Beijing and Shanghai in ways they never imagined at home.
There were face-giving banquets, motorcades with black sedans, five-star hotels and business cards with big titles.
In television interviews, hosts asked Western business leaders how they became so successful and lobbed easy-to-answer questions. There were speeches packed with many adoring audience members who looked at the leaders as if they literally had invented the Internet.
The word “friendship” must have popped up numerous times in these conversations that used translators.
I’m Chinese American. I’ve always argued for strong, cooperative long-term relations between the United States and China.
I think it’s time that we in the West, if we have not done so already, say to Chinese leaders: It’s time we learn from you.
I’ll let the fine reporting from U.S. journalists – and the Chinese staff members who help them – in China stand regarding all the eye-popping events about Google reconsidering its place in the roaring Chinese market.
I’ve been following the dispatches from The New York Times. You can also find stories on Google.com’s news search.
All I can say is this: China has 5,000 years of history. Strategies of all sorts have been tried over those years.
The Three Kingdoms remains the Chinese classic about power and strategy. I’m still trying to get through the book, which doesn’t always follow a linear plot.
But my wife and I have talked about many of its main points.
After President Obama returned from his China trip late last year, I wrote about Liu Bei, a central character from The Three Kingdoms.
One lesson that I think people should keep in mind when it comes to China and its long history is that multiple possibilities on multiple levels can move simultaneously.
Yes, you might have to reach for some aspirin.
If anything, your mind will be at work. You will remain intellectually agile.
In The Three Kingdoms, keep in mind how Cao Cao, who was powerful, lost his arrows to Liu Bei, who later used them.
When I told my wife of my thoughts, following the Google in China news, she told me of one famous four-character Chinese saying.
It is: Guo he, chai qiao.
The translation: After you cross the river, we tear down the bridge.
The optimist in me wants U.S.-China relations to steadily become warmer.
But I’ve studied international relations. I’ve been a journalist. I was educated in the United States. I’ve traveled to China many times since the 1990s.
So, I know there are times when a full accounting and review of the facts are needed – even if it’s a process you don’t want to do.
Western business leaders in China, I’m sure, have been aware of the limits they face in that country.
The only catch is that they might not have been at liberty to talk openly about them because long-term success and profits from the Chinese market were still floating in their minds.
Let’s see how this unfolds.
UPDATE: Todd Bishop, co-founder of TechFlash, asked me to type up some thoughts about the Google news from China. Have a look and read TechFlash for some solid, insightful technology news about the Seattle area.
Todd and I worked together at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and covered Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to the Seattle area in 2006.
