THE EFFECTS OF CHINA'S INTERNET CENSORSHIP POLICY ON GOOGLE AS THE U.S-BASED COMPANY (2000 - 2010)

Abstract

The economic relation between the United States and China has given China an opportunity to open its market by joining the WTO. In attempting to modernize, China views Internet to be controlled by regulating various Internet censorship policies and techniques to restrict information through the Internet, which was known as the "Great Firewall of China" in filtering contents that could harm the state's cyber security. While on the other hand, U.S. sees the Internet as an open, global space for freedom of expression and made Internet freedom as its agenda to be promoted. Therefore, Google at this point as the U.S. based company decided to comply with Chinese Internet censorship regulations in order to provide free Internet information towards Chinese citizens. In this thesis, the researcher attempts to analyze the effects of Internet censorship policy towards foreign company like Google that also considered affecting the relations between U.S. and China. The researcher uses Internet research and reviewing reports, articles and journals as the instruments in collecting and completing the data and information. The researcher viewed the data from 2000 until 2010 based on Google's presence in China until its withdrawal from Chinese Mainland to Hong Kong. The result of this thesis is expected to give a better understanding about the effects of two countries with different perspectives to have relations through the foreign company by implementing China's censorship policy on Google's business in order to support the national interests of the U.S.