Does anyone seriously think that a determined information-seeker in China can't find out whatever information he/she wants?  Google's old approach of showing which results are censored was highly empowering for such truth seekers because it showed exactly what their government didn't want them to read.<p>It's important to take the recent anti-China news in proper context:<p>1) China has long been a huge buyer of US treasury bills, in order to keep its currency low relative to the dollar.  This helps make China's export industry more competitive but harms the Chinese in general.  Some Americans dislike this because they think this makes the US vulnerable to China.  Other simply dislike competing against extra cheap Chinese manufactured products.  This unites two strange bedfellows against China.<p>2) Obama moved to start a trade war with China by imposing a tariff on tires... this was simply a political handout to the US tire industry... an industry he must have owed something to.<p>3) Google's move to pull out of China, aside from harming average Chinese people, was a silly, knee-jerk response, and Google will probably be punished by shareholders if it proceeds.<p>4) Hillary's recent remarks were intended simply to rile up the Chinese government.  Does anyone really think that the way to persuade someone else to your line of thinking is to publicly insult them?  Hillary knows this, but ramping up some petty friction with China serves her political ambitions.<p>For those who are wondering, China is a very difficult country to keep stable. After economic reforms, coastal cities have become rich very quickly, leaving inland areas extremely poor, etc.  Most of what China does that Americans find offensive is intended to preserve social stability.  In that sense it's highly conservative.  One can imagine a small public library in the US refusing to install a computer long after the internet age began... out of some slightly misguided notion that it will help stave off social changes the librarian considers unsavory.<p>In China's case, the danger is widespread, violent riots, etc.  Do you think that would be a good thing?  What should China's government do if that occurs, acquiesce?  So far China's government has done a decent job of instituting more free market policies, at the expense of social freedoms.  They've essentially modeled their approach a bit more after Singapore than after the US.<p>It's hubris to claim that every country should choose exactly the same mix of social and economic freedoms as the US.  This situation should remind all of us of when George W. Bush took great pains to convince the world what a bad guy Saddam was, so that he could start a war.