Martin Jacques Quotes

Google has withdrawn from China, arguing that it is no longer willing to design its search engine to block information that the Chinese government does not wish its citizens to have. In liberal democracies around the world, this decision has generally been greeted with enthusiasm.

The Chinese government still would like to see U.S. Internet companies explore the Chinese market, providing they are willing to abide by Chinese law. I think companies like Facebook should think about the Chinese market.

The Internet in China is fully open and the Chinese Government manages the Internet according to the law. As for what you can and cannot watch, watch what you can watch, and don’t watch what you cannot watch.

The Internet has been seen in the West as the quintessential expression of the free exchange of ideas and information, untrammeled by government interference and increasingly global in reach. But the Chinese government has shown that the Internet can be successfully filtered and controlled.

Let me start with Yahoo. As we meet today, a Chinese citizen who had the courage to speak his mind on the Internet is in prison because Yahoo chose to share his name and address with the Chinese Government.

On Apple's special store for the Chinese market, apps related to the Dalai Lama are censored, as is one containing information about the exiled Uighur dissident leader Rebiya Kadeer. Apple similarly censors apps for iPads sold in China.

There is clearly a constituency that appreciates the message that Google is sending, that it finds the Chinese government's attitude to the Internet and censorship unacceptable.

You have Google, we have Baidu. You have Twitter, we have Weibo. You have Facebook, we have Renren. You have YouTube, we have Youku and Tudou. The Chinese government blocked every single international Web 2.0 service, and we Chinese copycat every one.

The Chinese government sometimes shuts down the Internet and mobile services in specific areas where unrest occurs.

Like it or not, Google and the Chinese government are stuck in a tense, long-term relationship, and can look forward to more high-stakes shadow-boxing in the netherworld of the world's most elaborate system of censorship.

Protect IP (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are a step towards a different kind of Internet. They are a step towards an Internet in which those with money and lawyers and access to power have a greater voice than those who don't.

With a population of 1.4 billion, China is a lucrative market. But getting into that market isn't cheap. At best, the price of doing business in China is silence; at worst, it's reading talking points straight from the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing is not subtle about it.

When U.S. commercial interests press the Chinese government to do a better job of policing Chinese websites for pirated content, a blind eye is generally turned to the fact that ensuing crackdowns provide a great excuse to tighten mechanisms to censor all content the Chinese government doesn't like.

China's censorship and propaganda systems may be complex and multilayered, but they are obviously not well coordinated.

There's a reason the Chinese government is very concerned about Ai Weiwei. It's because he has all of these ingredients in his life that allow him to attract enormous attention across a very broad spectrum of the population.

The war for the Internet has begun. Hollywood is in control of politics. The government is killing innovation.

In an era of billion-person countries and trillion-pound economies, we need to find ways to amplify our voice. We are most likely to be heard when the Chinese negotiate with a £10 trillion E.U., not a £1.5 trillion Britain.

I am really close to the Chinese government. And I have a chance to talk to them, listen to them.

Our policy for the last many years has been to deter the Chinese government in Beijing from ever coming into the position where they thought they had enough leverage over the U.S. to cross the Straits of Taiwan.

As a condition for entry into the Chinese market, Apple had to agree to the Chinese government's censorship criteria in vetting the content of all iPhone apps available for download on devices sold in mainland China.

I foresee the Chinese ruling the world. What are you going to do to stop it? No president of the United States will ever have enough power to stop the Chinese when they want to take over the world.

Ai Weiwei, who is both a widely admired conceptual artist and a fearless human-rights activist, has been on the bad side of the Chinese government for years.

When Google went into China, there were some people who said they shouldn't compromise at all - that it is very bad for human rights to do so. But there were other people, particularly Chinese people, who said they were glad Google had gone in.

There was one issue on which there seemed to be almost unanimity: the Internet should not be managed by any government, national or multinational.

We've seen a massive attack on the freedom of the web. Governments are realizing the power of this medium to organize people and they are trying to clamp down across the world, not just in places like China and North Korea; we're seeing bills in the United States, in Italy, all across the world.