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Bilirakis: American Companies Must Not Forget American Values When Operating in China |
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Rep.
Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) reacts to a hearing by the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs on November 7, 2007 dealing with the topic of false
testimony provided to Congress by Yahoo! Inc. regarding its involvement
in providing account information to Chinese authorities leading to the
arrest of a Chinese journalist and political dissident.
I understand the seemingly untamed nature of the Internet.
Furthermore, I believe that we are just beginning to tap the vast
possibilities of the World Wide Web in improving humankind globally.
However, it is also apparent that countries seeking to undermine the
interests and values of the United States are hard at work, learning
ways to turn the Internet into a tool of cyber war.
In
some cases, U.S. technology and American companies are being used by
these countries under the guise of a complex domestic legal framework,
outdated international law, and sometimes outright bullying to not only
develop these tools against American interests, but also to suppress
and sometimes wipeout the opposition in their own countries.
While it is safe to say that the Internet in China may have empowered
the Chinese people with more access to information to improve their
daily lives in countless ways, it has not improved the ideology of the
Communist regime that rules over the freedom of its people. This
divergence over the freedom of ideas and expression found on the
Internet and the ability to use the power of the World Wide Web as a
tool of oppression and monitoring by authoritarian regimes, is what
makes this discussion a human rights issue, not just one of spreading
commerce, ideas and information.
The roles that companies
like Yahoo! and Google play in China are integral to ensuring that we
in America are doing our best to address these human rights concerns.
This involves doing even more to work through every diplomatic,
economic and political channel possible to ensure that American
companies have an opportunity to compete in China, while not
undermining American values.
It is the responsibility of
American companies doing business in China, and certainly the
responsibility of this Congress and Committee to ensure that our
efforts to compete and expand our presence in Chinese markets do not
get used by the Communist regime as a means of countering U.S. national
security interests, and more importantly, undermine the human values we
place on every individual.
We believe these values to be
universal, and although the climate in which many of these companies
may be operating in China does not hold a similar value, we expect our
companies to do their best and our government to support policies to
ensure that we are doing all we can to protect those who need it most.
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