ABSTRACT
The rising power of companies relative to that of states implies that companies are increasingly capable of threatening states and their interests. The very recognition of this growing strength is among the factors that can encourage companies to engage in belligerent behavior: it is improbable that Google, for example, would have assumed its hostile stance toward China in 2010 without being cognizant of its own global importance as a major multinational enterprise. One business scholar who studied the events assessed Google’s decision to counter China’s authority on Chinese territory as “self-confident and unilateral;” while noting that Chinese officials were taken aback and “responded very cautiously initially, while they deliberated what to do.” 1
