And so it seems that vanity was behind the Chinese government decision to hack into Google.
The New York Times reports that Wikileaks has revealed that the Chinese acted when they were fighting with Google over Internet censorship. They started Googling themselves, got a nasty surprise and decided to start hacking.
The Times reports: "The May 18, 2009, cable, titled "Google China Paying Price for Resisting Censorship," quoted a well-placed source as saying that Li Changchun, a member of China's top ruling body, the Politburo Standing Committee, and the country's senior propaganda official, was taken aback to discover that he could conduct Chinese-language searches on Google's main international Web site. When Mr. Li typed his name into the search engine at google.com, he found "results critical of him." Mr. Li himself directed an attack on Google's servers in the United States, although that's been called into question.
Wikileaks notes: "A well-placed contact claims that the Chinese government coordinated the recent intrusions of Google systems. According to our contact, the closely held operations were directed at the Politburo Standing Committee level."
Now it is important to remember who this Li Changchun is. As detailed here, he is the propaganda chief for all of China. He hasn't had exposure to other countries.
The Times also goes into detail about the kind of stuff the Chinese wanted to pull off Google. Like references to the Dalai Lama and Google Earth images of Chinese government facilities.
If nothing else, it shows how the tensions between globalization and technology will continue to burn away.
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