News today is that Apple’s itunes, a site which sells music and other media, is being blocked in China, ostensibly for recently making “Songs for Tibet” available on the store. “Songs for Tibet”, for those unfamiliar with it before now, is another one of those pat-yourself-on-the-back charity compilation albums put together by an assortment of activists and/or dying-to-be-remembered artists that advocates “the promotion of peace” and other vague concepts in support of the Dalai Lama. Says Reuters:

IT analysts in China said on Thursday that Beijing has probably severed the music selection function of the iTunes site. China is known for using technology to block Web pages that contain politically sensitive content.

While censorship in China is certainly a major issue, it seems that journalists (as invested in this issue as their jobs would naturally make them) usually get so riled up about the idea of a government controlling the flow of information that they miss the more significant issue here–China’s muscling in on IT companies.

The truth is that, even by China standards, the blockading of the entire itunes website is a bit of an extreme move to prevent sales of a little-heard-of compilation album sung in a language that most Chinese don’t understand well. Given the strong sentiments of patriotism and national pride present in China right now, wouldn’t it have been easier for China to just do what it has in the past–denounce the album as Western bias and let pro-China netizens satire it and the artists involved? Why draw more attention to the album than it would otherwise receive by making a big deal over it?

The would-be symbol of vacuous activism…

What’s probably going on her runs deeper than just the freedom of expression, the blockading of itunes over “Songs for Tibet” is just an excuse to strong-arm Apple, which is making inroads into the China market with its ipods and iphones, into playing ball with the government. The idea is that, by excluding Apple from one of the world’s fastest growing dot com economies, locally grown competitors will get a chance to establish themselves in the void, eating away at Apple’s potential market share. Apple, accordingly, is either forced to promise to play ball with the government’s way of doing things in the future or explain to shareholders why their sales aren’t rising as expected right now. It’s a trap that other supposedly righteous companies, like Google, have fallen prey to in the past–all eventually caving to Chinese demands.

The consequences of these companies caving to government pressure go beyond the mere evils of censorship. IT companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft do far more than sell music or search the internet, they also establish vast virtual infrastructures that are increasing necessary to daily life and business–and that also are greedily eyed by the ill-intentioned. Take, for example, Yahoo’s ready willingness to give away the IP addresses of Chinese e-mail account holders to the government, which resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of three dissidents and journalists–cases which came to light because individuals were directly harmed by them. It’s easy to speculate that numerous other manipulations of these resources (which people expect to be private and protected), like espionage or simple corruption, go undetected.

So “Songs for Tibet” is about much more than Alanis Morissette trying to show she’s a good person by donating shlock recorded in her dressing room one night, this incident is about the very soul of American corporatism. Will Apple make a stand and fight this Chinese assertion of power and authority? Or will they, like Google, simply cave and cover it with lame excuses? Unfortunately, any decent bookie would heavily favor the latter choice, and make the betting interesting by taking wagers on just how long it will take for this eventuality to bear fruit. It would be nice, however, to see a corporation take a stand for once, and not just sell songs about doing so.

…and the will-be symbol of political oppression?