Spiting one's face to punish the villian

[Greg.D.]

I hope this article is written through a pessimistic view of the moment, though it does sync with the current situation:

 

Worse Than A Trade War: China's Anti-Americanism Flares

........ “Google has been blocked forever!” Anne Stevenson-Yang of J Capital Research in Beijing tells me in an e-mail yesterday. “Our company’s back end runs on it so we have to run VPNs 24/7. This has been true at least since 2011.”
This year, starting in late May, Chinese authorities began interrupting Google services across the board. In addition to restricting access to Search and Gmail, they also targeted the Calendar, Images, Maps, and Translate functions. Beginning June 2, Google’s advertising platform was blocked. As a co-founder of GreatFire.org, a site that monitors censorship, told the New York Times, “This is by far the biggest attack on Google that’s ever taken place in China.”

The comprehensive attack on Google was long-lasting, suggesting that it was motivated by more than just a desire to censor information about Tiananmen. Moreover, this assault occurred while Beijing engaged in an obviously concerted campaign against American companies. Chinese authorities in the last month have prohibited the installation of Microsoft Windows 8 on government computers and launched an investigation of IBM with a view to removing its high-end servers from the networks of state banks. State media also engaged in a coordinated blitz against Cisco Systems.
......