Google Takes a Stand Over Hong Kong’s Protest Anthem

The Hong Kong government wanted the company to ensure that search results display the Chinese national anthem first, but Google has declined to do so. “We can definitely tell them what should be put at the top and what should be buried. There are ways to achieve that,” Hong Kong Chief Secretary

Eric Chan

Kwok-ki told the Hong Kong News Executives Association in late November.

Yes, it’s called rigging the results to serve government commands, and when Google refused, Hong Kong Security Secretary

Chris Tang

called the company’s response, “unacceptable and unbelievable,” according to reporting by the Standard. He added that the government would use “every means to correct the mistake.

Censorship is always Plan A in China, but its arrival in once-free Hong Kong is still jarring. In 2019 the Hong Kong government required students to sing the Chinese anthem in public schools, and by 2020 Hong Kong’s legislature passed a bill making disrespect of the Chinese national anthem punishable by up to three years in jail.

Google tells us the company does “not manually manipulate web listings to determine the ranking of a specific page.” And as of Monday “Glory to Hong Kong” still showed up at the top of a U.S. search for “Hong Kong anthem” on Google. An identical search on

Microsoft’s

Bing search engine turns up “March of the Volunteers” in the top slot. Hmmm. We called Microsoft for comment, but we did not hear back by our deadline.

China routinely scrubs politically inconvenient stories off Internet and social media, and Hong Kong police opened a probe into recent anthem confusion at a South Korea rugby match where the Hong Kong protest song was mistakenly played instead of China’s anthem. But some Western media are beyond Beijing’s reach. Google pulled its search engine from China in 2010 but it is still available in Hong Kong.

American companies haven’t always stood on principle against Beijing’s censors. Cringe-worthy moments by the NBA and Marriott come to mind. But the Communist Party’s attempts to enforce its surveillance and censorship are raising the political costs of doing business in China.

Hong Kong officials have been trying to reclaim the city’s reputation as a predictable place to do business. Hong Kong Chief Executive

John Lee

has said the city will make special plans to “entice talents to pursue their careers in Hong Kong.” That will take some doing after its many arrests of Hong Kong’s dissenters. It could start by not sounding and acting so much like China.