China v. Google: Chinese Students' Surprising Perspectives

On Wednesday, I started out my classes the way I always do: with a self-deprecating story about the father I’d met at Starbucks the day before who told me I was the strangest looking person his son has ever seen, and a lesson on how to appropriately use the word “Haterade.”

But, instead of following this with an uncontroversial activity on dating advice or movie topics, I wrote the word “Google” on the board, and turned to face my class.
A wave of hushed whispering in Chinese swept across the classroom.

Some background info: The day before, Google had ended its tense stand-off with the Chinese government over Internet censorship by making the bold and very public move to cancel its Google.cn operations in the mainland. The Chinese government criticized Google for politicizing commercial matters. Google defended its belief in protecting users’ right to free speech and the free flow of information. In the end, given the choice either to submit to the Chinese government’s laws on Internet censorship or end its google.cn operations, Google chose to leave.

This very public stand-off with the world’s largest Internet search engine provider has shined a very bright spotlight on the Chinese government’s policy of restricting information access to its 1.3 billion citizens. I wanted to gauge my students’ opinions, even though I didn’t know how they would react to my queries.

The reactions were incredibly interesting and unexpected.

My first two classes consisted of freshmen English majors. In China, freshmen university students have not yet been recruited into the Communist Party, so their opinions and perspectives are much less influenced by CCP policies than older students. This had a significant effect, I came to realize, on my students' reactions to my discussion on Google.

“So, why is Google such a hot topic in China right now?” I asked the class of wide-eyed freshmen.

The excited whispering in Chinese ceased, but four hands immediately shot up.

“Google left. It was not happy with our government’s opinion about how to manage the Internet,” responded a usually shy girl with wide-rimmed glasses.

“That’s true. What do you think about that?” I carefully nudged them on.

“I am very disappointed. Now, how will we get information from foreign media? Before, that was the only way for us to learn about things that the government did not want us to know about. Now, we will be less informed,” offered another student.

Surprised and encouraged by this perspective, I gently pressed on.

“What do you mean by, they did not want you to know?”

“Things that are negative about China or the government. The government doesn’t want a lot of people here knowing about it. It will decrease the government’s legitimacy.
The government thinks it will make China weaker.”

Of course, I would have expected these comments from American students, but never did I expect them to come so readily from a classroom of shy, respectful Chinese freshmen. I was astounded.

“So, do you think Google’s decision to leave was based on politics or business? You know, it was having trouble competing with Baidu (China’s version of Google), so maybe it left because it wasn’t profitable in China anymore?”

This time, one of my more thoughtful students spoke up. “I think that Google does not care about money, in this case. It is already very successful. I think Google wants to use its power to show that China is not a place for free ideas. That means it will lose money, but Google thinks it is okay to lose money if it increases freedom instead.”

Innnnteresting.

“Do you want China to be a place for free ideas?”

“Yes. Free ideas are what we need to become more powerful. If we stay unfree, we will never be the most powerful country in the world. We need freedom for power.”

Wow.

Emboldened and excited by my discussion with my freshmen, I posed the same question to my sophomore class later in the day.

This time, the reaction was incredibly different.

“So, what happened with Google yesterday?”

Silence. Uncomfortable, shifty glances.

“Google left.” That was all I got.

“Why did Google leave?” I pressed them on.

The students hung their heads, suddenly intensely interested in the wood patterns on their desks.

“We don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means we don’t know. So please don’t ask us.”

Shut down.

But, knowing that students had access to more information on the dispute than that,
I tried one more time to get more discussion going.

I asked: “Google left because it had different opinions than China about how to do business, right? What was the Chinese government’s opinion?” Maybe I’d at least get some party-line perspective on the matter from this question.

“The government is not happy with Google for turning business into politics. It is not happy that Google refuses to obey Chinese laws but wants to take money from China. The government welcomes Google back, as long as Google agrees to do business only, and leave politics to government.”

Interesting. Completely complacent towards the Chinese government’s stance on the issue, and completely different from my freshmen’s critical eye on the motivations behind their government’s stance.

“Okay. So, do you think Google will come back?”

“Yes, because Google needs China. China is the world’s biggest market. Any international company needs China to be successful. Google will be back.”

A nationalistic response from a group of students who, as sophomores, had recently been integrated into the Party system.

For the first time, I saw my students as a political force. Instead of shy, giggly girls and awkward, lanky boys, I recognized them as participants in China’s fragile political apparatus. I observed, first-hand, the mental transformation that Chinese university students across the country undergo as they become irrevocably intertwined with the political philosophy and policies of the Communist Party: from intellectually curious freshmen with the confidence to voice their opinions in front of their peers, to indoctrinated upperclassmen reticent to voice dissent in front of their Party member classmates.

This seems to be a vital aspect of the Party’s plan to maintain power: take the best and brightest students from China’s university system, recruit them into the Party, “teach” them the party line through monthly meetings, and then disperse them to watch over their classmates to ensure that all students are abiding by the Party’s laws and policies.

The result: students who, before their first official foray into the Party, were comfortable questioning government policies, become unwilling to publicly convey displeasure with their government’s actions.

To diffuse the tension that pervaded the classrooms during our Google discussion, I followed our talk with a very uncontroversial and harmless children’s game of Screaming Viking. The students all loved this. As we stood in a circle, collapsing into laughter as we watched each other fail to assume the proper funny poses upon command, I almost saw my students the way I had before: as fun-loving, giggly teenagers.

Except, now I know that there’s so much more to them than meets the eye.