Marketwatch has a report that a second group of Chinese dissidents has filed suit against Yahoo in U.S. court.
Human rights law is still in its developing phases. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I will say that Yahoo is certainly in a bind. It has to operate according to Chinese law. It would be extremely distasteful for a foreign company to pressure a sovereign government to change its domestic laws, and China is too powerful to bow to that pressure anyway.
On the other hand, China's laws violate numerous principles of human rights. Human rights may be a (so far) mainly Western construct, but it is widely recognized as a valid framework.
We will be muddling through these issues for decades, but pro-democracy NGOs as well as Western governments need to engage China and other countries. Western nations should not be afraid to spread democracy ... but they should be afraid of spreading it by force.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
If you were talking about North Korea, would you still feel the same?
Well, North Korea is not known as the hermit kingdom for nothing. I don't think any Western corporations are currently providing internet services.
Actually, I'm not sure how exactly I feel about China and Yahoo to begin with. I believe Yahoo has maintained that doing business in China, providing Internet services that may give the Chinese people a bit of a broader view of the world than if they were to only rely on state-run services, is better for society than not doing so. on the balance of things, anyway.
Then again, it's within US law to hit them with the lawsuits. I certainly hope the plaintiffs win. however, if they win, the course of action for Yahoo still isn't clear.
In the end, engagement done correctly can help promote democracy.
Post a Comment