What price convictions? Shouldn't everyone pull out of China?

"Google has pulled out of China"... so ran a number of headlines recently about the decision by Google to not back down with China.


The news, however, seems to have quickly died down as last week's chip wrappers... and China gets back to the usual grind of tracking potential dissidents and blocking sites, with the full implicit support of the companies who still operate there (such as Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and so on).


But, there are two questions I've not seen anyone answering so far:


1. if we do, which we do, as a whole, all agree that abuse of human rights is bad, and that freedom of speech is good (although there's another debate to be had there), then surely we should all be against any company tacitly condoning regimes that abuse those human rights?  Surely, therefore, all Western companies should withdraw from China and we should stop purchasing Chinese products, just as many did with South Africa in the seventies and eighties?


Oh dear... damn... I forgot... we need the Chinese economy.  So, Nelson Mandella and the millions of compatriots must be thanking their lucky stars that no one (except Barclays) actually gave a damn about losing the benefits of trading with South Africa... for if they had been a major oil producer, we must assume that they would either have been:


   a. invaded to ensure an uninterrupted flow of oil (as with Iraq); or
   b. peacefully ignored so long as there is an uninterrupted flow of oil (as with Saudi Arabia, Burma and so on).


Seeing as China is too big to invade (who wants to take on an army 1 million strong?), it seems that the best that those 'dissidents' (or human rights campaigners and so on) within China can hope for is that one day they'll have a benevolent dictator who will decide to change things for the better. 


Good luck with that.


However, the other question:


2. who says who is a dissident?  Throughout history, those who oppose the established government have been called 'dissidents' or 'terrorists' or 'the resistance' or 'freedom fighters'.  The 'terrorist' groups that forced the British out of Palestine (now Israel) and Ireland (now the Republic of Ireland) are now considered the founding fathers of those countries.


The war between the native-born Americans and the controlling British, known as the 'War of Independence' in the USA, showed how civil unrest against an undemocratic ruler can be viewed as heroic if they manage to overthrow the incumbent rulers.


As we speak, are not the US and UK governments (amongst many others) tracking emails, telephone conversations and other communications between a range of people that might have the most tenuous links with terrorism (having attended the same mosque as someone, having the same surname) or with anti-capitalist groups (having attended a legitimate public demonstration)?


Without wishing to condone any human rights abuses in countries such as China, are not the main governments in the West also guilty of infringing people's human rights also?  And if that is the case, surely none of us can complain about what happens abroad until we get our own house in order?


Perhaps we, in the West, must also wait until we get a benevolent dictator who will put things right, stop abuses by the security forces and enshrine certain rights as unassailable?


By the way, if the job's going, I'm available...