China Enforces Their Policies on American Companies

Chinese President Xi Jinping

Since 1949, when China established themselves as a communist state, the United States has had many quarrels with them to this day regarding their extent of their policy.  Communism is defined as a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

In other means, the government is in control of all businesses and aspects of daily life for the citizens.  Therefore, China has every right to censor their own country.  However, questions arise to whether the extent of that censorship stretches beyond their own borders.  Last week, the three major U.S. airline companies, United, American and Delta, all gave way to Beijing’s order that they change their websites to portray Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China.  For decades China has claimed that Taiwan is a part of their republic while Taiwan declares itself as a separate entity.  The Chinese enforced their censorship policy to companies not under their area of jurisdiction.  These companies were threatened by China to comply and played right into their game.  The Chinese Communist Party has been firmly increasing pressure on foreign companies to do its political demands inside China and around the world.  This has caused the United States and other foreign powers to debate how they can protect their private companies from the constricting Chinese administration.  The White House demands that this "safe space" that China is attempting to create must stop, but are unsure how to take action against it.

   

Link to Website

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/china-takes-its-political-censorship-global/2018/07/26/898d40dc-90f6-11e8-bcd5-9d911c784c38_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4637188db784

Questions for Discussion
1. What do you think should be done to prevent China from doing this again?

2. How does this showing of China's power challenge other countries?

3. What can Taiwan and China do to resolve the issue between them?

4. Does China have the right to extend their censorship? Why or why not?


I chose to write about this article because currently many folks are focused on the tension between the United States and Russia, with President Trump and President Putin meeting last week to defuse this.  However, this article reminds us that many other power countries exist beyond these two, such as China.  We are notified that China will continue to be prominent in our world and have an important place in political scheme of things.