Google’s China site came online, enabling everyone to witness digital censorship from the comfort of their very own laptop. Bring up google.cn instead of google.com, and watch the censorship flow. Punch in hot search terms, and the differences are readily apparent.

Yet how can that be? It’s supposed to be in Chinese. Well, the results page on Google China – at least to us who bring it up here in the United States as opposed to people actually on mainland China – displays English amid apparently-garbled Chinese symbols. We’re led to believe this is at least a close approximation to what’s actually seen by the 2-plus billion Chinese people around the world who might be interested.

In the version of Google.com that we Americans use, the search term “Falun Gong,” that popular spiritual movement which China has labeled a cult and outlawed, gets linked to web sites addressing its meditation practices and exercises, citing the qualities of truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance.

But on Google China, the first link is a website with such dubious headlines as “Sculptor carves again after quitting Falun Gong,” “Falun Gong Evil and Harmful” and my personal favorite “Taiwan Authorities Urged to Stop Cult from Disturbing TV Signals.” Man, that’s some powerful meditating.

A second news item brings the Google China debut into focus: Essentially at the very same time, Congress held a hearing on the subject of “human rights and the Internet in China.” It wasn’t news that they held a hearing. It’s the fact that nobody showed up – nobody, that is, if you’re counting the four officially invited companies tapped to testify: Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Cisco.

That’s right. They didn’t show up. Now anyone can guess why Yahoo, Microsoft and Google didn’t show – they’ve had no end of blowback for kowtowing to China on Internet issues. But why Cisco? Since Cisco provides much of the hardware backbone on which the Internet operates, this may be a matter of having bad companions. Still, it’s the other companies that are clearly in the hot seat.

Yahoo provided enough information to the Chinese authorities for them to link a Yahoo email account to a Chinese journalist, and now the young man is serving a ten-year prison sentence. Microsoft removed the blog of a Beijing media analyst after the objections of Chinese authorities, and began to have second thoughts. Microsoft now requires local governments to show that objectionable activity is actually illegal within its borders. Why Google chooses now to dive in, even as the water is rapidly heating up, is anyone’s guess. It’s readily apparent that they’ve squirreled around with their search engine, making one wonder where the truth is.

All four of these companies – Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Cisco – have been invited again to a replay of the Congressional hearing in two week’s time. And this time I’m sure they’ll all be there. After all, Congress has the power of subpoena, so it’s best to come in on your own.

And Congress has plenty to talk about. There’s the Cox bill which seeks $50 Million to counter Internet jamming by repressive governments. And the Bush Administration just went to court, trying to force Google to give up a list of websites and one week of searches in the war against child porn.

The backdrop of Google China tells us we’ve all got some real thinking to do. You see, it’s one thing to obey local laws, but there’s a big difference between action and restraint. If China wants to ban thousands of search terms, that’s fine. But it’s a whole different thing to become part of China’s propaganda machine.

I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.