Googling China -- censorship or liberation?

As the AP is reporting, Google "has agreed to censor its results in China, adhering to the country's free-speech restrictions in return for better access in the Internet's fastest growing market".

Needless to say (if you know anything about me), I generally object to such censorship. But there's another way to look at this: In the long run, this trade-off could prove to be a boon to political reform in China. The internet is a liberating medium, after all. Is it not better for Google to penetrate the Chinese market with restrictions than not at all?

Even censored, Google could be the thin end of yet another wedge, a wedge that ultimately leads (or at least contributes) to political reform -- and that ultimately benefits the Chinese people at the expense of its brutally oppressive regime.

For more, see The Peking Duck, Battlepanda, and The Heretik.