The international community has been watching the rise of China and India with interest, and two recent events symbolize the growing stature of these two countries. One was the so-called Google incident. In the course of its entry into China's Internet services market, Google Inc., a major American corporation, is said to have bowed to the wishes of the Chinese authorities by promising to suppress the distribution of information critical of the Chinese government. Google had previously resisted intervention by the U.S. government even with regard to information on criminal investigations and terrorist activities, trumpeting its commitment to the freedom of information, but it is now facing international criticism on the grounds that it caved in on this very point to China.

If it is true that Google acted to suppress information, this constitutes a challenge to the freedom of information distribution, and the firm can have little to complain about accusations that it compromised its political convictions and principles for the sake of the economic gains it hopes to reap from its foray into the huge Chinese market.

The significance of this incident is that one of the world's major corporations recognized China as a major economic power and applied (or had to apply) a double standard to it, judging that China need not necessarily be required to observe the international rules and principles that Western countries uphold as a matter of course. To put it another way, because China is (or has been recognized as) a major power, its freedom to act as a major power has been acknowledged.