That's the intriguing possibility raised in a phone interview I conducted an hour or so ago with Kaiser Kuo, a Beijing-based American with years of experience in China's online world. Here's an earlier post I wrote about Kaiser, and here's his Twitter feed.
I started by asking Kaiser where he stands on the principle vs pragmatism argument we've been discussing on The Interpreter. Then, at the 3.20 minute mark, Kaiser suggests that Google might have a pretty strong hand in this dispute.
Listen out also for Kaiser's views on Chinese censorship (at the 7.15 minute mark), which he says have evolved from a concern with Western news sites to worries about social media and its potential to spread rumour and allow netizens to organise.
As always, please excuse my umms and aahs, and a couple of slightly rough editing cuts.
