Should the Google/China spat over censorship start a trade war that puts an end to Chinese-made computers? One international trade lawyer argues that it should: "If China shuts out our Internet companies, we need to shut out their hardware that the Internet runs on."

The sentiment comes from Gil Kaplan, a former Commerce Department official who is now in private practice. Writing Tuesday at The Huffington Post, Kaplan argued that free trade deals are all about reciprocity—and that the US has opened its markets while China has not.

There had been an implicit agreement about the Internet made between China and the United States. The United States agreed to lower all its tariffs on high technology manufactured goods to zero, and we agreed to let in all that China could send over here, no questions asked. What is the result of that? The result is that substantially all United States computers are now made in China. We even went so far as to allow the first U.S. PC maker, IBM, to sell its PC division to a Chinese company, Lenovo... Why? Because we believed that as China industrialized and moved along the economic and knowledge highway they would become a great market for those goods where we continue to have an advantage, things like search engines, and streaming video, and innovative websites. We believed they would keep their side of the bargain. But they have not.

Kaplan is particularly incensed at the number of jobs the semiconductor manufacturing business creates in China. He singles out Foxconn, which employs several hundred thousand people and makes gear for companies like Apple. But as China gets the jobs, it continues to block American offerings like YouTube, prevent Western companies from owning businesses outright in China, and favoring local firms.

The current Google/China dispute provides an opportunity to demand that China open up to American business in return for its access to US markets. If not, well... who needs all those Chinese-made computers, anyway?

American consumers and businesses, for one, who like $499 iPads. In addition, China is an old veteran of such trade disputes and is more than willing to take countermeasures. For instance, back in 2007, after a US complaint to the World Trade Organization on the issue of China's (non) openness, the Chinese government simply stopped approving US films for distribution.

On the other hand, given how restricted China's markets already are, Chinese crackdowns on Americans goods would have only limited effects. When it comes to movies, for instance, China has long restricted the number of approved US pictures each year to a couple dozen.

Dealing with censorship as a trade violation isn't a new idea. Computer industry lobbying group CCIA was talking up trade complaints as a way to handle Chinese censorship back in January. CEO Ed Black said at the time, "It is increasingly apparent that censorship is a barrier to trade, and that China cannot limit the free flow of information and still comply with its international trade obligations. The Chinese government has said it is gathering more information before deciding how to proceed and we would urge that they look at the issue holistically with government, economic and trade officials involved in the decision."

But Kaplan's proposal would harm US hardware vendors at the expense of US Web companies—and a company like Apple would no doubt feel some agitation at having its current business model disrupted in order to benefit Google.

As for China's response to the Google situation, it hasn't changed much in the last two months. Yesterday, a Foreign Affairs spokesman summed it up for the press: "Regarding the impact of Google's possible withdrawal, I think it is simply an individual business act. It will not affect the investment environment of China or change the reality that most of the foreign companies, American companies included, have been doing well and making profits in China. China is firmly committed to opening-up. Be it domestic companies or foreign firms, they should all respect China's laws and regulations when doing business in China."