The Dragonfly Project: how do economic advantages prevail over human rights in US-China relations?

Key findings:

Google attempted to enter the Chinese market a few times, with the Dragonfly Project being the biggest on so far
The Dragonfly was a ready-to-launch censored search engine, which would not inform the users about the censorship
The project has been shut down because of the criticism

Introduction

While political tensions between the US and China remain high, economic ones are equally significant. China, with its vast market, continues to attract international companies. However, this market entry often requires compromising certain values, as operating in China without fully adhering to the rules of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is heavily sanctioned, if not impossible. Even if a multinational company decides to enter China and comply with the CCP, there is another downside: its product may fail to meet the expectations of Western consumers, even before its release.

This essay will examine Google’s unsuccessful attempt to enter the Chinese market in 2018. I will begin by introducing the historical background of Google’s secret project. Next, I will analyze the specifics of the search engine and the criticism it received. Finally, I will connect the findings with ethical considerations and highlight the key mechanisms that prioritize economic advantages over human rights.

The historical background

As mentioned above, the Chinese market has been too attractive for big companies to ignore. The potential of over 1 billion customers also drew Google’s interest in 2004, when the company started investing in the Chinese search engine Baidu.

However, just two years later, in 2006, Google sold its shares in Baidu and began planning to build and own its business in China. That same year saw the launch of Google.cn, a search engine censored in accordance with the CCP s regulations. This move prompted Congressional hearings and public criticism, with some comparing the company to Nazis [1]. In response, Google stated that “while removing search results is inconsistent with our mission, providing no information is more inconsistent with our mission” [2]. Unfortunately, this mission would soon change.

However, it is worth noting why the criticism of Google.cn, despite being harsh, did not lead to its shutdown. The key distinction between Google.cn and the later Project Dragonfly lies in the former’s ability to notify users if the information they searched for was purposefully deleted [3]. In contrast, the Dragonfly did not plan to include such notifications. This meant that a user seeking information about the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989 might simply receive results indicating the absence of such an event, without any indication that the information had been censored.

Despite this, Google.cn remained operational until 2010. In that year, a cyberattack targeted the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists living abroad, prompting the company to end its activities in mainland China [4]. This cyberattack was part of Operation Aurora [5], which was a series of cyberattacks by a state-sponsored group with connections to the People’s Liberation Army (Chinese military) [6]. Discussions with the Chinese government yielded no results, and given that the cyberattack exemplified the restriction of free speech, Google decided to withdraw from China. Instead, it redirected Chinese citizens to google.hk, the Hong Kong search engine that is purportedly uncensored [7]. However, immediately after this transfer, the Chinese government blocked Chinese users’ access to certain results on this engine [8].

The Dragonfly

In 2018, an employee leaked information about Google’s secret project, Dragonfly. Dragonfly was a search engine designed to comply with CCP censorship guidelines, and over 100 Google employees were involved in the project [9]. The engine’s design aimed to link users’ mobile phone numbers with their search queries while also suppressing websites like Wikipedia and those that disseminated information on freedom of speech, democracy, or human rights [10] [11] [12]. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, searches on Dragonfly for such topics would yield no information about censorship. Moreover, the Dragonfly Project intentionally manipulated even weather and air pollution data to avoid alerting citizens about the severity of the country’s air pollution [13]. Launching this search engine would therefore pose a serious risk to citizens’ health. Furthermore, According to the leaked information, the project’s future may be “unpredictable”, but the search engine was expected to be ready for launch in “six to nine months” [14] [15].

The vast market potential in the Middle Kingdom likely motivated Google to make a second attempt at entering China. From 2010, when Google left China, to 2018 and the emergence of the Dragonfly project, the number of internet users in China surged by 70%, reaching almost 800 million people [16] [17]. The economic implications for Google would be immense, particularly considering that the largest portion of its revenues comes from advertisements [18].

However, there remained a risk. By 2018, Chinese users already had trust in two well-established search engines: Baidu and Sogou. Additionally, these search engines had formal partnerships with Windows and WeChat (the Chinese text messaging and payment service). Hence, even with the launch of the Dragonfly project, Google could face considerable challenges in attracting new customers and altering their browsing habits [19].

Google executives claimed that the project was in an “exploratory” or “early” stage when information about the censored search engine leaked [20] [21]. However, a confidential memo revealed that the Dragonfly project was actually in a “launch-ready state”, pending approval from Beijing. Furthermore, it disclosed that work on the project had been ongoing for at least a year, involving multiple employees working full-time [22].

The criticism

Criticism of the project came from various quarters. The public was appalled and staged protests outside Google offices, holding signs such as “Do the right thing, Sundar Pichai” (Sundar Pichai has been the CEO of Google since 2015) or “Hey Google, don’t be a brick in the Chinese Firewall” [23].

Employees provided another facet of the critique. Over 500 of them signed an open letter in collaboration with Amnesty International, urging Google to shut down the Dragonfly Project. They expressed that they had joined Google “with the company’s values in mind, including its previous position on Chinese censorship and surveillance, and an understanding that Google was a company willing to place its values above its profits” [24].

The criticism also amplified the voices of those directly involved in the project. Yonatan Zunger, the lead engineer, disclosed that he had raised concerns about the project in one of the earliest secret meetings. However, his opinions were ignored [25].

While not all voices raised after the leak were negative, Chinese professor Bai Tongdong argued that even Google, in its censored version, would offer Chinese citizens better information than current search engines. He did not endorse censorship, but he advocated for the approach of doing less harm. However, this perspective did not persuade Western advocates. Rebecca MacKinnon, an expert in internet freedom, rejected the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach as unjustifiable in this case [26].

Amid this ongoing criticism, Google’s CEO Pichai did not abandon the project. He emphasized that Google’s mission is to provide information for everyone, noting that China represents 20% of the world’s population. Pichai also stated that Google must continually balance a set of values, adapting to the free speech and user privacy regulations in each country where it operates [27].

The shutdown

In July 2019, Google’s vice president of public policy, Karan Bhatia, announced the termination of Project Dragonfly during his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Despite pressure from senators, Bhatia did not make a promise that Google would never again attempt to operate in China. Instead, he stated, “What we’re willing to commit to, Senator, is that any decision to look at going back into the China search market is one that we would take only in consultation with key stakeholders” [28] [29] [30].

The analysis

The rationale behind Google’s decision to enter China remains economic. While the executives’ reasoning about providing information to everyone sounds official and well-grounded, the actual reasons for shutting down the project may be more complex. The criticism may have influenced the decision, yet it is worth considering that Beijing may have been dissatisfied with the project’s final results. Additionally, rising concerns from multiple sides likely hindered the project’s progress and implementation.

This case serves as a perfect example of economic advantages prevailing over human rights. In such instances, the strategy of “choosing the lesser evil” should not be considered because human rights should never be subject to debate.

Works Cited

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