Yahoo Settles With Imprisoned Chinese Journalists 106
Terms of the deal are secret, but Yahoo has reached settlements with two Chinese journalists who were arrested based on information the company provided to the ruling Communist government. "[...] a source at Yahoo said the company has been 'working with the families, and we're working with them to provide them with financial, humanitarian and legal assistance.' Yahoo has also agreed to establish a global human rights fund to provide 'humanitarian relief' to support dissidents and their families. The source said that details still have to be worked out."
Not really the issue (Score:1, Informative)
The basic fact of the matter is Yahoo is an American company, operating multinationally. As an American company, or, as any non governmental individual or organization, Yahoo does not have the right, let alone the obligation, to act unilaterally in any matter concerning a foreign entity, state or otherwise. That is the responsibility of the State department.
Obviously, the State department does not have the resources to respond to every issue that a multinational encounters, but, in this case, there were guidelines as to proper procedures to follow when such a request from a foreign entity was made. Procedures that Yahoo did not follow.
It would be nice if the issues were a simple good versus evil type, but they are not. The US's relations with China are incredibly complicated, and they are all intertwined. It is not as if morality always takes the last place in considerations, when the moral issues are big enough, the US has a long history of overriding economic issues in favor of morality, ranging from Northern mills giving up southern cotton in the American civil war to the smoking and global warming initiatives of the next administration.
In this case, the State department would have had to weigh the welfare of one foreign national against that of a large number of American citizens. I do not know what State would have decided, but I do know the State department is really not obligated to consider the welfare of non Americans; the whole point of a government is that it is responsible to and for it's own citizens, only. The proper decision on how to handle the request was the one that was in the best interests of America, not of Yahoo, Yahoo stockholders, or any other parties involved, foreign or domestic. It would be a tough call, even without Yahoo deciding to get into the game without knowing all the rules.
So, Yahoo screwed up. It happens. They are trying to do their best to at least take responsibility and clean up as much of the mess they caused as they can, I am so very proud of them for that. If Yahoo gets some good publicity from that, so much the better, encouraging companies not to hide behind lawyers when they make a mistake is probably one of America's most important social goals.
P.S. As an amateur institutional economist and sinologist, I do feel obligated to point out that there are several misconceptions about China in the responses here.
First of all China does not repress dissent at a village level; it can't, the population is far too large for that. Heck, they can't even keep a lid on corrupt manufacturers, and thats a lot easier task. What China does is something slightly different. Chinese are allowed to dissent at a village level, all they want. The Chinese are not a particularly tame people, their contempt for their leadership is traditional, just like here in America. The Chinese people can even organize (which is NOT the same as dissent), up to a village level. The Chinese government considers that a harmless (relatively) way of releasing the tensions that are inherent in any political situation. It is also one less group of people they have to micromanage. It is not like anyone is going to listen and obey without the use of force, anyways, the Chinese traditionally ignore their government's wishes as much as they can, again, just like here in America.
Beyond that, however, China suppresses organized dissent, very hard. When you consider that, even at that small level of freedom, riots involving 80,000 or more Chinese are common, you can pretty much understand China's reasons for those policies; those riots, historically, have been very destructive. As a matter of fact, in Chinese history, many times those riots have spread, and millions of Chinese have died. Right now, practically everyone is predicting a major set of riots next September, after the 2008 Olympics. A lot of what you are seeing right now is the Chinese government trying to make sure it doesn't happen e