Google's encounter with The Great Wall

In our International Business class today, we discussed the case regarding Google's China entry and how google.cn was restricted in their operations.

Back in 2002-03, Google.com was not functioning effectively in China unlike the way it was in the rest of the world. They wanted to enter the Chinese market (after all, who can ignore over 1B strong population and its associated revenue streams). However, Chinese govt did not allow google.cn (hosted in China) to function the same way as google.com. The former was restricted from showing some specific sites which were against the philosophy of the land. This was in direct conflict with Google's corporate objectives giving its customers unbiased search results. The US community & the Congress also reacted and questioned the restriction on the lines of 'freedom of expression'.

My argument is as follows: compliance with local laws is a prerequisite for any business to operate in a particular country. The case of Google has probably been exaggerated because of the profile of the company and country in question. To draw a parallel, protectionism, in principle also goes against 'freedom of expression' - so why don't we question the same thing in all those cases which are present even today in the goods and services market. We have probably accepted them since they have been defined and followed by developed nations.

Finally, it is just a question of the implicit power and dominance that certain nations exercise over others in the international community. That will decide the fate of businesses.