On China Beat, Jeffrey Wasserstrom interviews Mara Hvistendahl, a “Shanghai-based journalist who has written on a broad range of China-related topics” about the Google story:
JW: Since I know you’ve tracked issues relating to hacking and the Chinese Internet in general for some time, can you think of 2 or 3 things that China Beat readers could read to help them put the current headlines relating to Google into perspective?
MH: First, a lot of coverage has pointed out that Google has a minority of the market in China, and that’s true. But the people who use Google and Gmail tend to be among China’s elite – academics, businesspeople, and other professionals. (After all, there are many reasons to prefer uncensored search engines and encrypted e-mail that have nothing to do with human rights.) These people don’t always have the VPNs necessary to bypass the Great Firewall, and Google’s withdrawal would put the Chinese government in an awkward position with this group. They have gotten used to living without Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, but losing Google would be different.
Then again, people have underestimated the Chinese government before.
