>Hi peter,
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>>'Democracy', 'human rights', can you imagine that these words are here on the UT in the alarm filter?! In China they are! And Microsoft fully cooperates! Shame on them! Or not? Their standpoint is that it is better to be present in each country then to be banned from a country. They also say that they are obliged to follow the law of a country. So, where does this all lead to? I tell you: A corporation that submissively cooperates with undemocratic landlords and dictators will loose all remains of sympathy of citizens of democratic countries. That loss of sympathy will have big, HUGE, consequences for its existence. Microsoft is warned, they MUST stop this type of cooperation! Yes or no?
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>A very difficult issue. Every company is challenged with these kind of morality issues and every morally good decision might have dramatic consecuences. In our recent past we have rejected a taiwanese order for 6 submarines because china objected. Should we have delivered the submarines and hurt our relationship with china?
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>Also what to think about closing whole factories in thailand because children were working there in the clothing industry. Result: whole families in dire straits and many children went into prostitution, esspecially in the touristical areas. Yep great..
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>Companies are businesses and the only way to survive is to produce a better and or cheaper product than the rival. If your morality standard is set to high, it might mean your company is going belly up. There always will be tension between morality and financial and economical gain. It is a fact of life we have to live with.
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>Microsoft is facing a difficult problem. China, and India as well (over 2 billion people), are enormous markets it simply cannot ignore. OTOH, there probably is no morality there in regards of pirating software. But, you'll have to realize that human rights are rights in civilised countries (however in the US you sometimes wonder: guantama bay, illegally tapping phonelines). China has not reached that level yet and probably will take one or few generations before people are again going to demand for chance (as the students did in '89, but then more powerfull). Microsoft could very well play a very important role for democracy in China. Microsofts products makes it easy for chinese to communicate with people outside of china in all possible ways. Not only by verbal communication, but also indirectly as china becomes a strong economical power, it will need to play more active roles in trying to understand outside economies and civilisations to adjust their businesses upon.

Your analysis is clear and sounds plausible. However, it also implies that companies are allowed to forget the morality they show in their homeland as soon as they have passed the border of another country. In the other country they are allowed to - or forced to - act according to the morality as set there. I can accept that if the morality has been set by the people, that is, if it is a democratic country. But how about dictatorial countries? Your opinion is that it will eventually take some generations, but that in the end even the people in those countries will benefit. But that's not the 'mission' why these companies move into those countries and there is also no guarantee at all that democracy will rise. The current support by the west for China can also be explained as a legalization and justification of their type of communism, thus letting it endure for a long long time to come.

It's my opinion that a company too must have a moral of its own, and it should be exhibited anywhere in the world, not only in the homeland.