“Human history is replete with stories of nations in conflict but it is rare for a huge national government to do battle with an influential global business firm. The tale of China versus Google is something new, and it threatens to upset many existing arrangements necessary to maintaining peaceful relationships among people. As a conflict between a government with a 14% share of the world’s population and a company with 40% share of the world’s Internet searchers, China vs Google resembles a battle across spheres, like a lion versus an eagle. Yet China has used an array of modern and traditional weapons in order to bring Google to heel. It has allegedly mobilized distributed computing to launch cyberattacks against Google. It has imposed on the company legal restrictions inimical to the culture of many countries, including the United States. And it has engaged in a war of words against the company. Google now has at best a precarious hold on the biggest Internet market in the world. This conflict, the harbinger of 21st century geo-commercial disputes, tells us two new things about the world today. First, even Internet-based firms are not necessarily going to be able to do business across national boundaries. Second, the world lacks enough arrangements among nations, firms, and people to assure shared economic growth in a global information economy. Meanwhile, the problems are proliferating. State Department official Alec Ross recently cited 2009 as the worst year in history for freedom on the Internet, naming Turkey and countries in North Africa, Latin America and Asia that have placed restrictions on the Internet. And as the problems increase, so do the numbers affected. The Internet community in China grew about 50% in the last year, to the phenomenal number of 400 million, and will likely triple in the decade ahead.”