“The question, then, for Western companies, as much as for Western governments, is to decide whose side they are on: the Chinese officials who like to define their culture in a paternalistic, authoritarian way, or the large number of Chinese who have their own ideas about freedom.”

—  Ian Buruma

Battling the Information Barbarians China often views the ideas of foreigners, from missionaries in the 17th century to 21st-century Internet entrepreneurs, as subversive imports. The tumultuous history behind the clash with Google. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704878904575031263063242900.html#video%3DA8F64C9A-F513-4C06-8E68-CCB96C2ED70D%26articleTabs%3Darticle

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The question, then, for Western companies, as much as for Western governments, is to decide whose side they are on: the…" by Ian Buruma?
Ian Buruma photo
Ian Buruma 4
Dutch writer and academic 1951

Related quotes

Tenzin Gyatso photo
Boris Johnson photo
Lee Kuan Yew photo

“With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries…What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Lee Kuan Yew in speech entitled 'Democracy, Human Rights and the Realities', Tokyo, Nov 10, 1992 http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/lee-kuan-yews-place-in-history-is-guaranteed
1990s

Zhang Yimou photo

“I have seen a lot of films, but no Western filmmaker has ever had a great impact or influence on me. We always feel there is a great gap between Chinese films and Western films. Western films are far more advanced, but we don’t feel any shock about this gap. It seems natural.”

Zhang Yimou (1950) Chinese actor, film director, screenwriter and film producer

"Zhang Yimou by Lawrence Chua" in BOMB Magazine https://bombmagazine.org/articles/zhang-yimou/ (1 April 1991)

Ian Buruma photo

“It was, as we know, not so much eradicated as replaced by a Communist orthodoxy after 1949. And when this orthodoxy began to lose its grip on the Chinese public after the death of Chairman Mao in 1976, Chinese officials struggled to find a new set of beliefs to justify their monopoly on power. The ideological hybrid that followed Maoism was "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," a mixture of state capitalism with political authoritarianism.”

Ian Buruma (1951) Dutch writer and academic

Battling the Information Barbarians China often views the ideas of foreigners, from missionaries in the 17th century to 21st-century Internet entrepreneurs, as subversive imports. The tumultuous history behind the clash with Google. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704878904575031263063242900.html#video%3DA8F64C9A-F513-4C06-8E68-CCB96C2ED70D%26articleTabs%3Darticle

Noam Cohen photo

“Internet companies and nonprofits like Wikipedia have been forced to choose between cooperating with the Chinese government and losing access to the growing online audience there.”

Noam Cohen (1999) American journalist

[Noam, Cohen, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/technology/16wikipedia.html?_r=0, Chinese Government Relaxes Its Total Ban on Wikipedia, October 16, 2006, October 29, 2014]

Dani Rodrik photo
Hsing Yun photo
Sun Myung Moon photo
Peter Cain photo

“The Chinese economy would be brutally transformed into the mightiest manufacturing nation based on western capital and on an abundance of cheap, highly submissive labour.”

Peter Cain (1958) figure skater

Source: J. A. Hobson's Imperialism: A Study: A Centennial Retrospective (2002), p. 10.

Related topics