Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt writes that China uses hacking to give the country an economic and political edge, and that it's a dangerous superpower.
The book, "The New Digital Age" is written with Jared Cohen, and continues a conversation first started in a 2010 essay. While the book seems to revel in Utopian views of technology, Schmidt seems to use a lot of its pages to warn of the dangers of China's government and state companies, according to the Wall Street Journal. From the report:
And in this all-Internet world, China, the book says again and again, is a dangerous and menacing superpower. . . . China, Schmidt and Cohen write, is “the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information” as well as “the most sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies.
U.S. & World
The words and sentiment aren't from the new book aren't new, especially since Google has been battling government censorship in China since it started its search there in 2006. The government's blocking of information and searches it deems dangerous has made the search titan somewhat impotent in the region -- another reason the Chinese Baidu became the most-used search engine.
These censorship and Internet freedom battles showed that Google, despite its wealth and power, have all but given up in trying to give the people of China freedom of speech or knowledge. Now, all the company and its employees can do is lament the fact that its government-sanctioned censorship will continue until its people end it.
