GOOGLE HAS NOT LEFT CHINA, IT HAS SIMPLY MOVED FROM BEIJING TO HONG KONG. THIS IS LIKE MOVING FROM NEW YORK TO GUAM. THE WORLD APPLAUDS GOOGLE FOR STANDING UP TO THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE THE WORLD STILL THINKS OF HK AS NOT A PART OF CHINA. GOOGLE IS VERY TRICKY.
THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE DEMANDS OBEDIENCE TO GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY – Google, are you listening?
Romans Chapter 13:1-6
1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Titus 3:1, TLB.
Remind your people to obey the government and its officers, and always to be obedient and ready for any honest work.
NEW YORK TIMES
China’s Censors Tackle and Trip Over the Internet
This article was reported by Michael Wines, Sharon LaFraniere and Jonathan Ansfield and written by Mr. Wines.
BEIJING — Type the Chinese characters for “carrot” into Google’s search engine here in mainland China, and you will be rewarded not with a list of Internet links, but a blank screen.
Don’t blame Google, however. The fault lies with China’s censors — who are increasingly a model for countries around the world that want to control an unrestricted Internet.
Since late March, when Google moved its search operations out of mainland China to Hong Kong, each response to a Chinese citizen’s search request has been met at the border by government computers, programmed to censor any forbidden information Google might turn up.
“Carrot” — in Mandarin, huluobo — may seem innocuous enough. But it contains the same Chinese character as the surname of President Hu Jintao. And the computers, long programmed to intercept Chinese-language searches on the nation’s leaders, substitute an error message for the search result before it can sneak onto a mainland computer.
This is China’s censorship machine, part George Orwell, part Rube Goldberg: an information sieve of staggering breadth and fineness, yet full of holes; run by banks of advanced computers, but also by thousands of Communist Party drudges; highly sophisticated in some ways, remarkably crude in others.
The one constant is its growing importance. Censorship used to be the sleepy province of the Communist Party’s central propaganda department, whose main task was to tell editors what and what not to print or broadcast. In the new networked China, censorship is a major growth industry, overseen — and fought over — by no fewer than 14 government ministries.
“Press control has really moved to the center of the agenda,” said David Bandurski, an analyst at the China Media Project of the University of Hong Kong. “The Internet is the decisive factor there. It’s the medium that is changing the game in press control, and the party leaders know this.”
Today, China censors everything from the traditional print press to domestic and foreign Internet sites; from cellphone text messages to social networking services; from online chat rooms to blogs, films and e-mail. It even censors online games.
That’s not all. Not content merely to block dissonant views, the government increasingly employs agents to peddle its views online, in the guise of impartial bloggers and chat-room denizens. And increasingly, it is backing state-friendly clones of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, all Western sites that have been blocked here for roughly a year.
The government’s strategy, according to Mr. Bandurski and others, is not just to block unflattering messages, but to overwhelm them with its own positive spin and rebuttals.
The government makes no apologies for what it calls “guiding public opinion.” Regulation is crucial, it says, to keep China from sliding into chaos and to preserve the party’s monopoly on power.
“Whether we can cope with the Internet is a matter that affects the development of socialist culture, the security of information, and the stability of the state,” President Hu said in 2007.
In China’s view, events since then — including the online spread of the democracy manifesto known as Charter 08 and riots in the Tibet and Xinjiang regions, said to be aided by cellphone and Internet communications — have only reinforced that stance.
In the last year, censorship has increased markedly, as evidenced by the closing of thousands of blogs and Web sites in ostensible anti-pornography campaigns, and the jailing of prominent dissidents who used the Internet to spread their views. The departure of Google’s search engine in March only capped months of growing intolerance of unfettered speech.
The paradox — at least at first glance — is that even with such pervasive restraints, China’s press and Internet are capable of freewheeling discourse and social criticism.
Newspapers, blogs and online chats have unleashed national outrages over a host of topics, including food and medicine contamination and local corruption. Bloggers continually tweak the censors, leaking their orders and creating an online land of mythical creatures whose names are all homonyms for aspects of the state’s heavy hand.
Some exposés and satires fall on the acceptable side of an often invisible and shifting line that marks what can and cannot be said freely in China. On the other side are statements that too overtly challenge the Communist Party’s hold on power, that attack or embarrass powerful politicians or that tread on a long list of forbidden topics, from unrest in Tibet to political crises like the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Journalists and Internet publishers often discover that they have crossed the line only after their online presence is blocked, their bylines are blacklisted or they are detained or summoned to “tea” with government security officers who deliver coy but unmistakable warnings.
With 384 million users in China at last count in January — and 181 million blogs — the Internet poses a true cat-herding predicament for censors. Foreign entities that operate outside China are the lesser of the censors’ problems. The reason is logistical: access to the Internet in China from the outside world is limited, and all traffic must pass through one of three large computer centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
At those centers, government computers — the so-called Great Firewall — intercept inbound data and compare it with a constantly changing list of forbidden keywords and Web addresses.
When a match occurs, the computers can block the incoming data in several ways, from rejecting it outright to making more nuanced trims. For example, Chinese citizens who search Google using sensitive terms like “Tiananmen” may receive complete summaries of relevant Web sites. But if the Web sites are banned, it is impossible to link to them.
Within China, however, data cannot be choked off at a handful of gateways. So the government employs a toolbox of controls, including persuasion, co-opting and force, to keep the Web in line. Self-censorship is the first line of filtering and an obligation of all network and site operators in China.
China’s big homegrown sites, like Baidu, Sina.com and Sohu, employ throngs of so-called Web administrators to screen their search engines, chat rooms, blogs and other content for material that flouts propaganda directives. For four years, Google followed suit with its Chinese search engine, Google.cn.
The Internet companies’ employees are constantly guessing what is allowed and what will prompt a phone call from government censors. One tactic is to strictly censor risky content at first, then gradually expand access to it week by week, hoping not to trip the censorship wire.
The monitors sit astride a vast and expanding state apparatus that extends to the most remote Chinese town. “There is an Internet monitoring and surveillance unit in every city, wherever you have an Internet connection,” said Xiao Qiang, an analyst of China’s censorship system, at the University of California, Berkeley. “Through that system, they get to every major Web site with content.”
Under a 2005 State Council regulation, personal blogs, computer bulletin boards and even cellphone text messages are deemed part of the news media, subject to sweeping restrictions on their content.
In practice, many of those restrictions are spottily applied. But reminders that someone is watching are pointed and regular.
An inopportune post to a computer chat forum may produce a rejection message chiding the author for “inappropriate content,” and the link to the post may be deleted. Forbidden text messages may be delivered to cellphones as blank screens.
Even so, screening the electronic activities of hundreds of millions of people is a nearly impossible task. Moreover, users increasingly are resorting to technological maneuvers like virtual private networks and proxy servers to sidestep the censors’ blocking of banned Web sites altogether. By some reports, a million people now hurdle the Great Firewall via such dodges — a number that remains a tiny fraction of all users, but that has spiked upward in the last year.
So the censors have taken other tacks to tighten their grip.
One is automation. China’s leading instant-messaging service, called QQ, automatically installs a program on users’ computers that monitors their communications and blocks censored text.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology tried last year to expand automated censorship nationwide through mandatory Green Dam software that could remotely update lists of banned topics. After an outcry from Internet users and corporations, the state backed off, but Green Dam or other filtering software remains installed on computers in some Internet cafes and schools. Last month, the government signaled that a version for cellphones was in the works.
Another strategy is manipulation. In recent years, local and provincial officials have hired armies of low-paid commentators to monitor blogs and chat rooms for sensitive issues, then spin online comment in the government’s favor.
Mr. Xiao of Berkeley cites one example: Jiaozuo, a city southwest of Beijing, deployed 35 Internet commentators and 120 police officers to defuse online attacks on the local police after a traffic dispute. By flooding chat rooms with pro-police comments, the team turned the tone of online comment from negative to positive in just 20 minutes.
According to one official newspaper editor who refused to be named, propaganda authorities now calculate that confronted with a public controversy, local officials have a window of about two hours to block information and flood the Web with their own line before the reaction of citizens is beyond control.
Zhang Shihe, a self-identified citizen journalist and blogger with the pen name Tiger Temple, said the government ranked various bloggers by the risk they posed. “The most dangerous ones will be shut down, and some others will receive alerts from the government,” he said.
Mr. Zhang’s own blog posts are sometimes deleted. His workaround is to publish six blogs, hosted on different Internet sites: because censorship rules are vague and the censors merely human, a post that one blocks may be ignored or overlooked by another.
That may not last long. The consensus is that the government is rapidly getting better at its work.
Consider: One chilling new regulation limits those who can operate a site on China’s .cn domain to registered businesses, and requires operators to produce Chinese identification. “In case they need to shut you down for some subversive content, they need to know how to find you,” said an executive with one Beijing firm that hosts Web sites.
Major cities like Beijing — which last year advertised for 10,000 voluntary Internet monitors — are increasingly taking censorship into their own hands.
Pitted against this are those who argue that government chokeholds on the Internet cannot succeed. Bloggers like Mr. Zhang argue that growing restrictions on Internet speech only inflame ordinary users, and that bit by bit “people are pushing the wall back.”
Or at least trying. At a recent meeting of Chinese Internet leaders in the southern city of Shenzhen, Ding Jian, who heads the Internet company AsiaInfo, proposed that Shenzhen be made a censorship-free zone as an experiment to determine whether China can stomach the chaos of an unfettered Internet. Strangling free speech, one entrepreneur argued, is likely to strangle innovation as well.
The Internet portal NetEase published a report of the meeting. It was quickly deleted.
Li Bibo contributed research.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 8, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.
Go Daddy, Rival Not Offering New China Domain Names (Update3)
By Jeff Bliss
March 24 (Bloomberg) — Go Daddy Group Inc., the world’s largest registrar of domain names, has joined rival Network Solutions LLC in refusing to offer new domain names in China because of what Go Daddy describes as increased Internet spying by the government on its citizens.
Christine Jones, executive vice president and general counsel of Scottsdale, Arizona-based Go Daddy, disclosed the company’s change in policy at a hearing of a congressionally mandated commission today in Washington.
The decision was prompted by a “recent increase in China’s surveillance and monitoring of the Internet activities of its citizens,” Jones told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
Herndon, Virginia-based Network Solutions, which was acquired by General Atlantic LLC in 2007, stopped offering China domain names in December because of the government’s requirements for “a lot of other personal information,” said Susan Wade, a company spokesman.
Go Daddy’s announcement comes two days after Google Inc. said it would no longer censor Internet search results in China. Mountain View, California-based Google, the world’s largest search engine, said two days ago it would redirect Chinese readers to its unfiltered Hong Kong Web site.
Google’s Example
“Go Daddy is the first company to follow Google’s example,” said Representative Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican. Go Daddy’s decision is “a powerful sign that American” information technology “companies want to do the right thing in repressive countries.”
Jones today told the commission that the China Internet Network Information Center, a quasi-governmental agency that oversees registration services, has begun requiring more stringent identification and documentation for those seeking domain names.
In addition, the agency said it would audit all China domain name registrations already held by Chinese nationals, Jones said.
“We are concerned for the security of the individuals affected by” the agency’s new rules, she said.
Go Daddy and other domain registrars also were asked to provide to the agency photo and business identification, as well as signed registration forms from Chinese domain registrants, Jones said.
Censoring the Internet
At the same hearing, Alan Davidson, director of public policy at Mountain View, California-based Google, pressed for the U.S. and other governments to consider new trade rules for countries that censor the Internet.
These censorship policies often favor local businesses, he said.
“We should continue to look for effective ways to address unfair foreign trade barriers in the online world,” Davidson said.
The U.S. also should think about tying foreign aid to countries adapting better Internet policies, he said.
In a statement provided to the commission, the Chinese Internet Bureau of the Information Office of the State Council criticized Google’s decision to stop censoring the Internet and not work with the government.
“The Chinese government encourages the development and popularization of the Internet and is committed to opening up the Internet,” the statement said.
China has 384 million Internet users, according to government data, more than the total U.S. population.
–Editors: Jim Rubin, Don Frederick.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jim Kirk at jkirk12@bloomberg.net
NEW YORK TIMES
Google Calls for Action on Web Limits
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Published: March 24, 2010
A top Google executive on Wednesday called for rules to put pressure on governments that filter the Internet, saying the practice was hindering international trade.
Google vs. China
Alan Davidson, director of public policy for Google, told a joint Congressional panel that the United States should consider withholding development aid for countries that restrict certain Web sites. He said censorship had become more than a human rights issue and was hurting profit for foreign companies that rely on the Internet to reach customers.
“The growing problem for Internet censorship is not isolated to one country or one region,” Mr. Davidson told the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. “No single company and no single industry can tackle Internet censorship on its own.”
The fallout from China’s restrictive Internet policies widened on Wednesday when officials from Go Daddy Group, an Internet services company, told the commission that the company would halt registration of Chinese domain names.
Christine Jones, general counsel of Go Daddy, said the company was concerned about privacy after Chinese officials requested photo identification and signatures of its customers. For the first time, she said, Go Daddy had been asked to retroactively obtain documentation for individuals who had registered a domain name.
“We’re concerned about the chilling effect,” Ms. Jones said. “We made the decision that we didn’t want to act as an agent of the Chinese government.”
Ms. Jones described a chaotic scene for Internet companies in China. She said attacks from hackers were rampant, fraudulent payments were common, and spammers worked without fear of punishment from the government.
Representative David Wu, Democrat of Oregon, said he thought more companies would follow the example of Go Daddy and Google and cut back operations in China. “Pretty soon you have a cascade going,” Mr. Wu said. “There is a difference between compliance and complicity.”
More than 40 countries actively censor the Internet currently, Mr. Davidson said, and 25 governments have blocked Google over the last several years. Mr. Davidson suggested asking countries to pledge to keep sites unfiltered in international trade agreements.
On Monday, Google closed its Internet search service in China and began directing users in that country to its uncensored search engine in Hong Kong. So far, Mr. Davidson said, the company had noticed “intermittent” censorship of the Hong Kong site. Despite the restrictions, the company plans to maintain a sales team in mainland China, he said.
Google’s decision to leave China was prompted in part by a series of attacks by hackers last year, which raised broader concerns about the flow of information in the country. The Chinese government has disputed that it was the source of the attacks, which focused on e-mail accounts of human rights advocates.
Mr. Davidson said Google would consider returning to the Chinese market if the government there removed its restrictions. But he acknowledged that there would likely be a “hard road ahead” because neither side is willing to cede ground.
“It’s going to take a lot of work to combat that censorship,” he said.
In a statement to the commission, Chinese officials defended their policies, saying, “foreign companies need to abide by Chinese laws and regulations when they operate in China.”
“The Chinese government encourages the development and popularization of the Internet and is committed to the opening up of the Internet,” the statement said.
The panel included members of the Senate and House and Obama administration officials. It was chaired by Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, and Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan.
“Information is not to be feared, and ideas are not enemies to be crushed,” Mr. Dorgan said in opening remarks. “The truth is China too often wants a one-way relationship with the world.”
Google’s action angers China, threatens business interests
Although Google’s new unfiltered Hong Kong-based search site had not been fully blocked by the Chinese government by late Tuesday, many experts on both sides of the Pacific expect that to happen. Meanwhile, Google’s deal to be the default search engine on partly state-owned China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile telecommunications carrier, is widely presumed to be at risk. And Tom.com, a Chinese Internet portal owned by a Hong Kong tycoon, by
Tuesday had switched its default search engine from Google to the Chinese Baidu.com, saying it wanted to avoid violating any Chinese laws.Still, even as Google carried through on its two-month-old threat to stop censoring search, the full scope of the government’s response — and the reaction from the Chinese people — was not yet fully clear.
Bill Bishop, whose DigiCha.com blog follows digital media in China, spent Tuesday in Beijing watching state-sponsored TV news blast Google for everything from its lack of respect for Chinese law to its alleged problems serving up Internet porn. “The government has gone into high gear to lambaste Google in the official
media,” Bishop said.
“There are lots of ways to cause Google problems in China,” he said, adding that while he hoped the government would not block Google search from the mainland, “the government can certainly make things difficult for any remaining Google operations or business relationships inside China. I expect them to do so, maybe not this week, but in the not too distant future.”
Bishop said many Chinese would accept without much question the state media’s portrayal of Google’s alleged sins, such as a high government official quoted by the Xinhua News Agency expressing “our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conduct,” and its “politicization of commercial issues.” But China’s tech-savvy bloggers were worried the government would block google.com.hk and possibly force the Internet giant to abandon its research and development and advertising operations in China — though there were no signs of that happening Tuesday.
“There’s a rising sense that this is not the right direction for China to go, which is increasing its isolation,” said Santa Clara University professor Anna Han, a specialist in Chinese law who has been monitoring the
online reaction in China since Google’s announcement Monday. “When they mention this, it’s not only Google. It’s Facebook; it’s YouTube. It’s ‘What else is going to be blocked?’ “A few Chinese passers-by laid flowers or chocolates on the large metal “Google” sign outside the company’s office building in northern Beijing. While Google said its Chinese Web search was operating with “no issues” Tuesday, users on the mainland reported that some politically sensitive keyword searches would cause a browser to disconnect from the Web, and in other cases, searchers could not access sites displayed by Google because of government filters. Han said many Chinese bloggers Tuesday were joking about “doing more wall-climbing,” an inside joke about the steps tech-savvy Chinese take to evade the “Great Firewall” of Internet censorship.
Wall Street also appeared to be waiting for the full extent of the government’s response.
“There continues to be a lot of uncertainty about what’s going to happen, and uncertainty is never good from the shareholders’ perspective,” said Ben Schacter, an analyst who follows Google for Broadpoint AmTech, reacting to the China Mobile situation and other questions about Google’s future in China. “That’s one reason you see the stock down today. There’s still the broad questions about what is going to happen to Google in China.”
Google shares dropped by 1.5 percent Tuesday, to $549.00 a share, as Wall Street analysts like Schacter took a wary but measured response to Google’s action. The stock gained back most of that loss in after-hours trading.
Google first said in January that it would no longer comply with government requirements that it censor search, after a cyberattack originating in China targeted its intellectual property and the Gmail accounts of human rights activists.
Google runs a distant second in the Chinese search market to Baidu.com, which has about 60 percent of the market compared with Google’s 35 percent. Similarly, most estimates are that Google’s revenue from China was less than 3 percent of its $23.7 billion in revenue in 2009.
But the future growth potential in China, which now has the world’s largest Internet market, is huge.
“If they were the leading player in search in China, or they were on a really significant growth curve there, there might have been a more negative reaction from Wall Street,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst and principal of Sterling Market Intelligence. “I think people are saying this is not an immediate (financial) impact and the future is uncertain, so we’re not going to punish Google for doing this.”
The Obama administration appeared to take a more measured response Tuesday from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s strongly worded speech in January on Internet freedom, with a State Department spokesman calling Google’s action, “a business decision.”
But State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley also told reporters, “were I China, I would seriously consider the implications when one of the world’s most recognizable institutions has decided that it’s too difficult to do business in China.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact Mike Swift at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/swiftstories.
THE POST AND CURRIER
Don’t do China’s dirty work
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
If you live in China and want to get information from any Internet search engine on the Dalai Lama, you get back the answer, “Problem loading page.” And if you do it often enough, you have to worry that government agents will come by to ask questions of their own.
To save the government the trouble and expense of blocking political and other Web sites it considers bad for the mental health of its citizens, China demands that foreign and domestic Internet companies do the censorship for it. Until Monday, all complied, including such major American providers as Microsoft, Yahoo and Google.
Now Google has said “no.”
Would-be users of Google China are now redirected to the company’s uncensored Hong Kong operation. The immediate consequence, is, however, the same, because the Chinese government has replaced Google China as the censor, and “Problem loading page” is still the answer you get if you type in Dalai Lama, the BBC reports.
But the consequences for Google, its competitors and China itself are striking. Google has scored a big gain with supporters of human rights and earned a valuable public relations advantage over its American competitors who still collaborate with China, as they must if they wish to continue to do business there. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based non-profit promoting free speech, hailed the decision and said other Internet companies should follow Google.
The Chinese government deplored the “politicization” of a “commercial issue” and said Google was “totally wrong.” Some China experts think China will retaliate by blocking all access to Google. In Beijing, the BBC reports, some Chinese laid flowers outside Google’s offices to thank the company for standing up for its principles.
The White House, ever nervous about its relations with Beijing, said it was “disappointed” that China and Google are at an impasse. It should be grateful, instead, that Google has the backbone to refuse to do China’s dirty work.
The fascination Americans naturally have with the dynamic Chinese economy tends to obscure the sobering fact — one that would never be tolerated anywhere in the Western world — that 1.3 billion Chinese suffer the denial of basic human and political rights supposedly guaranteed by their own government.
Google, with its principled and brave stand against Chinese censorship, has given their plight the attention it deserves.
China moves appear to target Google
James Temple, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Chinese government appeared to be retaliating against Google Inc. for its decision this week to stop censoring search results in the country’s mainland, further stoking tensions among U.S. businesses already irked by the country’s increasingly bold and nationalistic tactics.
If unchecked, the widely watched episode could tip already fragile trade relations, slowing the expansion of foreign businesses into China and, in turn, checking the nation’s meteoric economic development.
“An issue that has been bubbling under the surface for years has now hit the boiling point,” said Carl Guardino, chief executive of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a trade organization in San Jose. “For the good of the innovation economy and both (countries’) national economies, let’s hope that both sides can step back, cool down and find a workable solution.”
On Monday, Google redirected traffic from its Chinese search engine, Google.cn, to an unfiltered site in Hong Kong, a less-regulated special administrative region of the nation. The move made good on a promise the Mountain View Internet giant made on Jan. 12 to stop censoring search results in China, after revealing that it and dozens of other U.S. businesses were victims of intricate cyberspying that originated there.
Chinese government firewalls quickly disabled searches for controversial topics from the mainland to the Hong Kong site, Google.com.hk, or blocked links to certain results, the New York Times reported Tuesday. Under apparent government pressure, China Mobile, the country’s largest cellular communications company, was expected to remove Google’s search engine from its service, the newspaper said, citing business executives close to industry officials.
Likewise, China Unicom has halted the rollout of a mobile phone that runs on Google’s Android platform while Internet portal Tom.com ceased using Google technology in its search engine.
Skepticism growing
If the actions were in fact all the result of Chinese government prodding, it would fit into a pattern of recent state strategies that have increasingly led foreign companies to question the common wisdom that China is necessary to their growth strategy, said Jock O’Connell of ClarkStreet Group, a Sacramento trade consulting firm.
Key complaints include government policies that increasingly funnel business to state-owned enterprises, force foreign companies to strike joint ventures with local businesses, require access to the companies’ propriety technology and undervalue China’s currency.
“We’ve been hearing these kinds of stories now for some time, and there does seem to be a crescendo of adverse news about companies, particularly high-tech American companies,” O’Connell said. “It’s a very serious situation that’s emerging here.”
Feeling unwelcome
Indeed, 38 percent of foreign firms said they feel increasingly unwelcome in China, up 12 percentage points from a few months earlier, according to a survey released earlier this week by the American Chamber of Commerce in China. The trend was more pronounced among technology companies, with 57 percent saying they were harmed by government policies and 37 percent saying they were losing sales as a result.
Google’s decision marks another in a series of narrowed Chinese ambitions among major U.S. technology companies. In recent years, for instance, both eBay Inc. and Yahoo Inc. handed over control of their operations in the country to local partners.
But some believe the track record to date shows that U.S. companies, on the whole, are more than willing to indulge the Chinese government’s self-censorship demands and stacked rules in exchange for the chance to break into the world’s most populous marketplace.
“Most businesses seem to take the attitude, based on their public pronouncements and actions thus far, that the Chinese government can take advantage of them in any number of ways,” said Alan Tonelson, a research fellow focused on China at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represents U.S. manufacturing companies. “They’ve convinced themselves that they’re making so much money now that it’s worth it, or the prospective market is so big that they can’t afford to ignore it.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report. E-mail James Temple at jtemple@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
FORBES
China, White House Comment on Google Redirecting China Searches
MarketNewsVideo.com , 03.23.10, 01:26 PM EDT
China and the White House responded last night to Googles decision to redirect traffic for its China search site to one based in Hong Kong, to avoid complying with government censorship regulations. Chinas Xinhua news organization reported that an unnamed official called Googles decision totally wrong.
China and the White House responded last night to Googles decision to redirect traffic for its China search site to one based in Hong Kong, to avoid complying with government censorship regulations.
Chinas Xinhua news organization reported that an unnamed official called Googles decision totally wrong.
And the White House, via a spokesman for the National Security Council, said it was disappointed that Google ( GOOG – news - people ) and the Chinese government could not reach an agreements.
Some good news for Google today is that The European Court of Justices ruled it was not liable if sellers of counterfeit goods asked to use brand names in advertising links, as long as it removes the ads if a trademark abuse is recognized.
In reaction to Google redirecting Chinese search to Hong Kong, Goldman Sachs ( GS – news - people ) hiked its price target on Baidu.com , ( BIDU – news - people ) from $575 per share all the way up to $675 per share. Goldman says Baidu could win a third to three-quarters of Google’s China traffic.
What’s behind Google farce
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-03-22 17:53
Editor’s note
Since Google’s first announcement on Jan 13, 2010, that it was considering retreating from China, it has garnered worldwide attention. Google claimed its decision was a response to the Chinese government’s censorship and hackers’attacks from China. It assumed that the Chinese government would amend its current laws to adapt to the company’s requirements, turning the incident into a farce and resulting in its facing backlash from Chinese users.
As the situation evolved, it was getting clearer that Google was backed by US government and politicians who intended to politicize the economic incident and attack China. While US government increased its pressure on China, a national outrage against US’s finger-pointing spread across China, which backs the government to firmly hold its stance against Google and the US government and any politicians behind it.
Google has made a bad bet against the Chinese government and its netizens. If Google is not willing to comply with Chinese rules, leaving China is the best choice.
China: Google breaks promise, totally wrong to stop censoring
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-23 07:30
BEIJING – Google has “violated its written promise” and is “totally wrong” by stopping censoring its Chinese language searching results and blaming China for alleged hacker attacks, a government official said early Tuesday morning.
The official in charge of the Internet bureau under the State Council Information Office made the comments about two hours after the online search service provider announced it has stopped censoring its Chinese-language search engine Google.cn and is redirecting Chinese mainland users to a site in Hong Kong.
“Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks,” said the official.
“This is totally wrong. We’re uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conducts,” the official said.
Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond made the “stop censoring” announcement in a blog post at about 3 am Tuesday Beijing Time, more than two months after the company said it had been attacked by hackers supported by the Chinese government and was considering pulling out of the Chinese market.
The Information Office official said relevant departments of the Chinese government talked with Google twice at its requests, on January 29 and February 25 respectively, to hear the company’s real intentions and demonstrate sincerity of the government.
“We made patient and meticulous explanations on the questions Google raised (in the talks), …telling it we would still welcome its operation and development in China if it was willing to abide by Chinese laws, while it would be its own affair if it was determined to withdraw its service,” the official said.
“Foreign companies must abide by Chinese laws and regulations when they operate in China, ” the official added.
Google must follow Chinese rules or leave
By Zhu Yuan ( chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-03-23 09:20
Whether Google is going to withdraw its operation from the Chinese market or not should not be overstated. If this US Internet giant does not want to abide by the rules in China, it is in fact choosing to exit from this market. Its accusation toward the Chinese government of hacking into its website is just an excuse for its final withdrawal.
As we all know, each country has its own rules. There is no such a thing as absolute freedom. This Internet company, with its operation in many countries for many years, should have more than enough knowledge that there can’t be absolute freedom on the Internet, either. There is also no freedom for an Internet company to upload novels without notifying the writers and paying them.
Does Google have such freedom in the United States? It certainly doesn’t. Then why does this company want to have its own way in China? There is no reason for the Chinese government to allow Google to do whatever it wants to do simply because it is an American company.
We Chinese need to have a peaceful mind on this matter. We welcome foreign companies to operate in China as long as they abide by Chinese rules. We are open to negotiations if they have any problems. But we don’t like the way Google has handled its disputes with the Chinese side.
Life will go on whether we have Google or not. China will further open to the outside world and so will the Chinese market. I think Google will be welcomed if it wants to return someday in the future. But China will not give in on a matter of principle: It must abide by Chinese rules when it comes to its business.
Google case will not affect China-US relations
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-23 16:43
BEIJING – Google’s withdrawal from the Chinese mainland will not affect China-US relations “unless someone politicizes the issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Tuesday.
Qin told a regular press conference the Google issue was a commercial matter and would not damage the image of China.
He said moves to tie the issue to the China-US relations were “making a fuss” and “overstating the issue.”
The Chinese government encouraged and pushed for the openness of Internet and its management according to its laws and regulations, which was common practice in all countries, Qin said.
“What China is striving to prevent on the Internet is the flow of information that would pose a danger to national security and the interests of the society and the public,” he said.
“Any foreign company operating in China must abide by Chinese laws and regulations,” Qin said.
China would stick to the strategy of opening-up and the principle of mutual benefits, and welcome foreign entrepreneurs to invest and do business in China within the law.
“We will create a sound environment for them,” he said.
Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond said his company would “stop censoring” in a blog post at about 3 am Tuesday Beijing Time, more than two months after the company said it had been attacked by hackers operating in China and was reconsidering its approach to China.
Google hits exit key
By Wang Xing and Zhang Haizhou in Beijing, and Guo Jiaxue in Hong Kong (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-24 07:37
Search engine’s departure from the Chinese mainland opens door to rivals. Wang Xing and Zhang Haizhou in Beijing, and Guo Jiaxue in Hong Kong report.
Google Inc took a major step in its row with the Chinese government on Tuesday by redirecting traffic from its Beijing-based search engine to its service in Hong Kong.
The move effectively means the company no longer needs to filter its search results, as required by Chinese law.
Although Google’s exit is good news for its rivals, chiefly Baidu, Sogou and up-and-comer Tencent, many experts said it is a “lose-lose situation” for both China and the US-based company.
The initial reaction from the authorities came via an unnamed State Council information official who told Xinhua News Agency that Google had “violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market (in 2006) by stopping filtering its search service and blaming China, in insinuation, for alleged hacker attacks”.
“This is totally wrong. We’re uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conduct,” the official said.
However, just hours later, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular press briefing that the government would handle the case “according to law”, and that the move was an isolated act by a commercial company and should not affect China-US ties “unless politicized”.
Philip Crowley, a US State Department spokesman, said on Monday it was “a decision for Google to make”.
It is unclear whether the move will go on to impact bilateral ties, while uncertainty also remains on whether Google’s revenue, and that of its Chinese partners, will be affected.
TOM Online, a mainland Internet company run by one of Asia’s richest men, said on Tuesday it has ended its affiliation with Google Inc, after “the expiry of their agreement”.
“TOM reiterated that as a Chinese company, we adhere to rules and regulations in China where we operate our businesses,” said a statement by its parent company, Hong Kong-based TOM Group, which is controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing. The company declined to say when it stopped using Google services or to provide any details
of its agreement with Google. Many of Google’s other Chinese partners, such as free music service Orca Digital, insisted the redirecting of Google.cn and Google.com traffic to its Hong Kong website will have little impact on their partnerships.
“Google.cn is only one gateway so it doesn’t have a significantly impact to us,” said Orca chief executive, Gary Chen, whose firm has received investment from Chinese basketball star Yao Ming. He said his company may keep its partnership with Google through its global website and believes the Chinese government would not oppose that. “I believe they can still find a solution,” he said.
Orca generated 5 million yuan ($730,000) in the fourth quarter of 2009 – most of which came through Google’s advertising platform – and Chen said he expects that figure to double this year despite Google’s closure of its China-based operations.
About 40 percent of Google China’s revenue is generated through its global advertising network, which would not be impacted by the shutdown of Google.cn, according to Edward Yu, president of China-based market research firm Analysys International.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
By JAMES B. STEWART
The Google-China showdown is at hand, and for sheer drama it’s hard to beat.
That any private concern—even the world’s largest Internet search-and-advertising company—would take on the world’s most-populous nation is pretty mind-boggling. Is technology now so powerful that the company can defy the government of one of the world’s most-powerful emerging markets?
Even more broadly, can a government as pervasive and controlling as China’s stop the digital flow of uncensored information and continue to dictate what its population knows and can discover? Is it even in China’s self-interest to do so?
I’d love to be a fly on the wall as Chinese government leaders wrestle with these issues, since the discussion surely represents one of the great debates of our time. But not even Google seems to know exactly what the Chinese authorities are thinking, or even what the terms of the debate are.
Google took the momentous step of closing its Google.cn site this week and rerouting users to its unfiltered Chinese-language Hong Kong site. The move offers the Chinese government a face-saving compromise by enabling it to enforce its restrictive policies on the mainland while allowing a relatively uncensored site in more-liberal Hong Kong. But it isn’t much more than a fig leaf if any Chinese user can simply type in the Hong Kong address and get unfiltered search results, not to mention the competitive advantage Google would gain over Chinese search engines like Baidu that censor results.
So I don’t think China will go along. (Almost immediately, there were indications that China continues to block some search terms or filter sensitive results on the Hong Kong site.) But why doesn’t China use Hong Kong as an experiment in greater digital tolerance? China could block users on the mainland while seeing what happens in Hong Kong. It already allows Twitter and Facebook in Hong Kong, with no evidence of subversive consequences so far. It’s surely in China’s long-term interest to have a better-educated, Google-equipped population.
While investors are waiting for these long-term issues to play out, they need to ponder the implications for Google’s stock, which has dropped more than 10% from its peak this year, in large part over concerns about the China standoff. Investors seem to be assuming the worst, which is that Google will be shut out of one of the world’s largest search markets. That seems the likely outcome, at least in the short term.
But longer term, I believe China’s own self-interest and the forces of technology favor a Google return. Google says it’s maintaining its research-and-development operations in China, which will be essential if it hopes to remain competitive. Google could also show a little more sensitivity towards the Chinese government’s sensibilities and try to avoid making this an issue of American cultural imperialism. Any good news for Google in China will likely give the stock a boost.
More fundamentally, the case for owning Google has never depended on its success in China, in my view. There are plenty of other growth areas for the company, including the U.S. I’m more interested in its market share in search and its revenue growth as the developed world emerges from the financial crisis and advertising spending rebounds. The switch to digital advertising is still in its early stages, and as I see it, Google has only scratched the surface of its potential. As long as these trends remain intact, I’m comfortable owning Google as one of my core holdings.
For anyone seeking an entry point, the recent 10% pullback represents an opportunity. Whatever the eventual outcome, once the China conflict simmers down, investors will again be focusing on the fundamentals. In Google’s case, they remain compelling.
—James B. Stewart, a columnist for SmartMoney magazine and SmartMoney.com, writes weekly about his personal investing strategy. Unlike Dow Jones reporters, he may have positions in the stocks he writes about. For his past columns, see: www.smartmoney.com/commonsense.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
WASHINGTON POST
Google’s decision signals change in Western businesses’ approach to China
Google’s action angers China
The Chinese government has condemned Google’s partial retreat from its operations in mainland China. Web users there have been left to wonder whether they’ll still get access to the Internet through Google. (March 23)
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
BEIJING — The showdown between Google and the world’s most populous country marks a turning point in one of the great alliances of the late 20th century — the bond between Western capitalists and Beijing’s authoritarian system.
After Google’s audacious decision to confront China over the issue of censorship, officials here insisted Tuesday that the Internet giant’s case was an isolated one and would not affect China’s opening to the West or its market-oriented reforms.
But Western businesspeople said the episode had underscored a broader sea change in how U.S. and European companies deal with the government here. More specifically, they said, Western businesses have begun to push back openly against China.
In announcing Monday that it would stop censoring results on its Chinese site, Google acknowledged that it was “well aware” that the Beijing government “could at any time block access to our services.” But the company also made clear that such an outcome would be better than having to censor itself any longer.
Although China has not yet taken any draconian action against Google or its employees, it has started censoring results for sensitive searches in China on Google’s Hong Kong-based Web site, where its users on the mainland have been redirected. (Hong Kong users could see uncensored results.)
There were also signs that China wants to punish Google in other ways. On Tuesday, a Hong Kong-based Internet company, TOM Online, announced that it had stopped using Google’s search tools. TOM is owned by the family of Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s richest man and a supporter of the Communist government. Meanwhile, analysts said two major state-owned mobile phone companies on the mainland, China Mobile, with 500 million users, and China Unicom, China’s second biggest, were rethinking deals with Google.
Analysts say that China’s willingness to stand up to Western firms is a consequence of its meteoric economic rise. The government doesn’t need Westerners’ investment as much as it once did, and it is increasingly bald-faced about its desire to acquire their technology.
“The Google affair is both catalyst and evidence of change,” said Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Dragonomics, a Beijing-based economics firm. “We are at a turning point. It had been very, very unusual for foreign business to say anything too negative about China because the opportunities here were too large.”
Indeed, for decades, Western businesses have been Beijing’s closest friends. When Congress railed against China over human rights issues and threatened to revoke its most-favored-nation trading status in the 1990s, the American Chamber of Commerce in China and other groups flocked to Washington to state Beijing’s case. The last major Western company to openly confront the Chinese government was Levi Strauss, which withdrew from the country over what it called China’s “pervasive violation of human rights.”
But more recently, Western businesses have begun to voice concerns about their treatment in China. The European Chamber of Commerce has issued reports over the past several years that say China’s business environment is deteriorating. One report accused China of embracing “economic nationalism”; another said China had effectively halted economic reform.
“In 2009, China was one of only two major growth markets in the world, but the door here isn’t opening wider, it’s narrowing,” said the chamber’s president, Joerg Wuttke. “China talks about opening up, but in fact local implementation is not just really bad, it’s worsening.”
Even the American Chamber of Commerce in China, which has long been a friendly venue for the Chinese government, has gotten into the act. On Monday, it issued a report that said business confidence among 203 members surveyed was at its lowest point since polling began four years ago.
And in December, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington took the unprecedented step of organizing a joint letter, signed by 33 business associations from around the world, criticizing China for a plan that would force foreign companies to hand over their prized intellectual property and trademarks to China if they wanted to keep selling goods here.
Joe Studwell, an author who has followed the perils for Western businesses in China for more than a decade, said the change in tone was part of a “new realism” toward China.
Businesses now understand, he said, that the “unspoken arrangement with China is coming unstuck.” China is not opening its markets, nor is it allowing its currency to increase in value, as many had assumed it would.
Relations between China and world’s business leaders, however, are still strong. Among the Fortune 500 companies, 480 have investments in China. There are 660,000 foreign companies represented in the country. Foreign direct investment, after wavering last year during the global financial crisis, seems to have rebounded, with an estimated $7 billion to $8 billion a month flowing into China. With its 8 percent growth rate in 2009 and more of the same predicted for this year, China remains one of the only bright spots in the relatively dim firmament of global business today.
And there are still Western business leaders who put a positive spin on the relationship.
Michael Barbalas, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, said his group’s expanding profile reflects not a souring on China but a realization that political changes have mandated a more boisterous approach.
Ten years ago, for example, China allowed comments on very few, if any, of its laws. Last year it allowed foreign interests to comment on 300 pieces of legislation, he said.
“As China opens up these laws for comment, we found a lot of special interests speaking out,” Barbalas said. “So we had to up our game.”
Chinese officials insist the Google case is unrelated to the broader business climate here. After the Internet giant made its announcement Monday, Microsoft indicated that it would continue to “comply with the laws in every country in which we operate,” disappointing human rights advocates.
In fact, no one expects another Google to confront China soon. But the Internet giant’s willingness to do so is a sign of the times.
Meanwhile, how China treats Google going forward is widely viewed here as a test case. The government could force the firm out of China entirely, or it could allow Google to be a symbol of a new kind of relationship with Western companies — one in which foreigners can do business here without feeling compelled to kowtow to the political system. Many analysts view the latter scenario as highly unlikely.
“Tactically, yelling at Google is unwise,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, a visiting fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Technology Policy. But “how they handle Google is either going to contribute to reassuring foreign companies that you can do business in a rational manner or to convincing them the regulatory environment is so politicized that you have to prove your loyalty.”
“If I were China on this case, I would declare victory,” she added, “and then walk away.”
Staff writer Ellen Nakashima in Washington contributed to this report.
China newspaper accuses Google of helping U.S. intelligence
BEIJING
Wed Mar 24, 2010 1:56am EDT
BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese Communist Party newspaper accused Google on Wednesday of colluding with U.S. spies, and said the firm’s retreat from China over censorship justified Beijing’s efforts to promote homegrown technology.
China’s latest blast at the world’s biggest Internet search company came in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the chief newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party.
Google on Monday shut its mainland Chinese-language portal Google.cn and began rerouting searches to a Hong Kong site, over two months after it said it would not accept the self-censorship demanded by China’s government, which is determined to keep a tight grip on domestic users’ access to the Internet.
China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday it regarded Google’s departure as the “individual act” of one company, and said the country remained welcoming of foreign investors.
But Beijing’s response to Google’s complaints about censorship and hacking has also echoed nationalist-tinged claims that Google and Washington used the dispute over Internet controls to challenge Communist Party authority.
“For Chinese people, Google is not god, and even if it puts on a full-on show about politics and values, it is still not god,” said a front-page commentary in the paper.
“In fact, Google is not a virgin when it comes to values. Its cooperation and collusion with the U.S. intelligence and security agencies is well-known,” said the newspaper.
“All this makes one wonder. Thinking about the United States’ big efforts in recent years to engage in Internet war, perhaps this could be an exploratory pre-dawn battle,” the commentary said of Google’s pull-out.
The overseas edition of the newspaper is a small-circulation offshoot of the main domestic edition, and often makes bolder comments than the main edition.
The commentary said Google’s actions should prompt China to focus more on developing its own technology.
While the tough comments may not reflect official policy, they reflect China’s anger at the United States after recent tensions over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, President Barack Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, and Washington’s calls for Beijing to lift the value of its yuan.
Google “completely misjudged the situation, and does not grasp that Chinese people are extremely averse to external threats and pressure”, said the newspaper commentary.
The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday Google’s decision to shut Google.cn was a business decision by the company and did not involve the U.S. government.
(Editing by Ken Wills)
Stance by China to Limit Google Is Risk by Beijing
Security officers tried to stop people from lighting candles outside Google’s Chinese headquarters in Beijing on Tuesday.
By MICHAEL WINES
BEIJING — This is a nation that builds dams, high-speed rail lines and skyscrapers with abandon. In newly muscular China, sheer force is not just an art, but a bedrock principle of its seemingly unstoppable rise to global prominence.
Who has more to lose in the showdown over Internet censorship?
Now China has tightened its grip on the much more variegated world of online information, effectively forcing Google Inc., the world’s premier information provider, to choose between submitting to Chinese censorship and leaving the world’s largest community of Internet users to its rivals. It chose to leave.
Google’s decision may not cause major problems for China right away, experts said. But in the longer run, they said, China’s intransigent stance on filtering the flow of information within its borders has the potential to weaken its links to the global economy.
It may also sully its image — promoted to its own people as well as to the international community — as an authoritarian country that is economically on the move, perhaps even more so than the sclerotic, democratic West.
“The Chinese are very serious about pushing their soft-power agenda,” Bill Bishop, a Beijing Internet entrepreneur and author of the technology blog Digicha, said Tuesday. “Google just put a big hole in that sales pitch, and I think they know that.”
China’s leaders appear fully aware of their dilemma. But at this stage in China’s history, and given the Communist Party’s determination to maintain absolute rule, they still put political control ahead of all other concerns.
“What does Google’s exit say? What it says publicly is what everyone deeply engaged in China knows privately,” Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a Brookings Institution scholar and former Clinton administration adviser on China, said in an interview.
“This is a system with very substantial domestic imperfections,” Mr. Lieberthal said. “And the view from afar that this is simply an unstoppable juggernaut — that they have found the keys to the magic kingdom — is not correct. China’s leaders understand this as well as anyone.”
The conclusion of Google’s four-year Internet experiment in China — an effort to transplant Western free-speech norms here — was anything but smooth. On Monday, it effectively shut down the search engine it hosted inside China, after declaring in January that it would stop cooperating with Chinese censors.
As Google began redirecting tens of millions of mainland Chinese users early Tuesday, Beijing time, to its Hong Kong-based Web site, google.com.hk, parts of the company’s remaining mainland operations quickly came under pressure from Google’s Chinese partners and from the government itself.
China’s biggest cellular communications company, China Mobile, was widely expected to cancel a deal that had placed Google’s search engine on its mobile Internet home page, used by millions of people daily. One official in China’s media industry said that the company was scrapping the deal under government pressure even though it had no replacement lined up.
Censorship, of course, is not new in China. The government has never released its grip on the information industry, and if anything has steadily tightened supervision of the Chinese Web in the past couple of years. Those restrictions have not noticeably inhibited its economic growth, which remained robust even as the West staggered through its worst recession in decades.
But China also does not acknowledge to its own people that it censors the Internet to exclude a wide range of political and social topics that its leaders believe could lead to instability. It does not release information on the number of censors it employs or the technology it uses for the world’s most sophisticated Internet firewall. Its 350 million Internet users, many with fast broadband connections, are assured they have the same effectively limitless access to information and communications that the rest of the world enjoys.
Google publicly challenged that stance in January, and reinforced its ideological opposition to China’s policies by finally pulling the plug on its mainland search engine after a failed round of talks with Chinese officials. That forced Chinese leaders to defend their control of the Web, which they did partly with an outburst of nationalism and vitriol.
The cost, at least with some influential sectors of its own society, could be steep. In the technology sector, Google is viewed as an innovator that has spurred rapid development of the Chinese Web. Its departure will leave some Chinese companies with greater influence, but could also stifle competition, some fear.
“Google is good at innovation, and when it leaves, the rest of the companies in China will lack motivation. Without its countervailing power, the industry won’t be as healthy,” said Zhang Yunquan, a professor at the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Fang Xingdong, chief executive of Chinalabs.com, said the vast majority of Chinese Internet companies invested little in research and “simply copy each other’s technology.” With Google’s departure, their profits may rise, but China’s Web space will begin to stagnate, he predicted.
Despite China’s mantra that the Google issue should not be “politicized,” it is, at the end of the day, highly politicized, especially inside China.
Xiao Qiang, founder and editor in chief of China Digital Times, said that China’s leaders once saw the Internet as having both political and commercial uses that balanced each other to a degree. “But increasingly they see it as a political space,” he said.
The implication of that thinking, post-Google, is that companies that want to be major players on the Chinese Web will have to prove their political fealty to the leadership, much as traditional media companies do. “Chinese companies have to be collaborators,” Mr. Xiao said.
One Western official in China said that the leadership is now treating the Internet as a “core interest,” an issue of sovereignty on which Beijing will brook no intervention. The most commonly cited core interests are Taiwan and Tibet, the third-rail issues in China’s international diplomacy.
That could make it even harder for China to negotiate Internet freedom issues with the United States and other nations. In fact, even among those who argue that China will do just fine without Google, China’s battle with the Internet giant is seen as a proxy for its broader confrontation with the West over rights, trade, climate change, and declining American hegemony.
“I believe Google got some support from the U.S. government,” said Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University. “This means the American government will adopt a tougher, more aggressive policy toward China.”
David Barboza contributed reporting from Shanghai, and Edward Wong and Jonathan Ansfield from Beijing.
Google Faces Fallout as China Reacts to Site Shift
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
By MIGUEL HELFT and MICHAEL WINES, The New York Times
Google pushed. Now China is pushing back.
The company’s problems in China escalated on Tuesday as its ties to some Chinese partners began to come apart and the government reacted angrily to Google’s attempt to bypass government censors.
Google, the world’s largest Internet company, once viewed China, the world’s largest Internet market, as a bottomless well of opportunity with nearly 400 million Web users, and an even larger number of potential customers for its nascent, but vital, mobile phone business.
But by directing search users in China to its uncensored search engine based in Hong Kong, Google may have jeopardized its long-range plans.
“I don’t understand their calculation,” said J. Stapleton Roy, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “I do not see how Google could have concluded that they could have faced down the Chinese on a domestic censorship issue,” said Mr. Roy, a former United States ambassador to China.
Google called the move sensible and said it hoped to keep its sales, research and other operations in China.
But some of those other businesses quickly came under pressure. China Mobile, the biggest cellular communications company in China and one of Google’s earliest partners in its foray into smartphones, was expected to cancel a deal that had placed Google’s search engine on its mobile Web home page. Millions of people use the page daily. In interviews, business executives close to industry officials said China Mobile was planning to scrap the deal under government pressure, although it had yet to find a replacement.
Similarly, China’s second-largest mobile company, China Unicom, was said by analysts and others to have delayed or scrapped the imminent introduction of a cellphone based on Google’s Android platform. One popular Web portal, Tom.com, already ceased using Google to power its search engine. The company is controlled by Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong billionaire who has close ties to the Chinese government.
Technology analysts and the business executives said Google might also face problems in keeping its advertising sales force, which is crucial to the success of its Chinese language service on PCs and mobile phones.
In an interview on Tuesday, David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, said he did not see the company’s decision to serve Chinese search customers from outside China as an act of defiance. He said the move was consistent with Chinese law and with the company’s goal to stop participating in censorship. While it is possible that Google’s prospects in China could suffer, the company has yet to see any concrete business impact from its decision, he said.
“We certainly expected that if we take a stand around censorship that the government doesn’t like that it would have an impact on our business,” Mr. Drummond said. “We understood that as a possibility.”
But Mr. Drummond said that over time, Google would benefit from taking a principled stand in China and elsewhere. “It is good for our business to push for free expression,” he said.
Several analysts suggested that the government could shut down the company’s Chinese search service entirely by blocking access to Google’s mainland address, google.cn, or to its Hong Kong Web site, google.com.hk, though that had not happened as of Tuesday.
Users who went to google.cn were automatically being sent to google.com.hk. Google’s search engine in Hong Kong provides results in the simplified Chinese characters that mainland Chinese use. Chinese in Hong Kong use the traditional characters, which can contain more strokes and are more difficult to read and write. Government firewalls either disabled searches for highly objectionable terms completely or blocked links to certain results. That had typically been the case before Google’s action, only now millions more visitors were liable to encounter the disrupted access to an uncensored site.
Some China experts say they were perplexed by Google’s handling of the crisis, given its stated goals of keeping business operations in China.
David M. Lampton, director of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said it was not surprising for China to balk at the idea of an American company using Hong Kong, and China’s own “one country, two systems” policy, as a way around censorship.
“That would be seen as fundamentally politically subversive in China,” Mr. Lampton said. “I am not sure whether it was an attempt by Google to give the Chinese a way out, but instead it magnified the political controversy.”
Others said Google’s move also put Chinese authorities in a difficult situation, as the government might be wary of agitating loyal Google users in China, who tend to be highly educated and vocal.
“To block Google entirely is not necessarily a desirable outcome for the government,” said Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting, a technology research firm in Beijing. “It’s going to boil down to whether authorities feel it is acceptable for users to be redirected to that site without having to figure it out themselves.”
The potential loss of cellphone search customers could prove particularly painful over time, analysts say. As on PCs, Google makes money on mobile phones when people click on its ads. If carriers like China Mobile and China Unicom remove Google as their principal mobile search service, it could cut Google’s mobile business.
Also, the spread of Android phones, which is just beginning in China, was meant by Google to ensure the availability of its services like search and maps on smartphones. Yet this month, Motorola replaced Google’s search on Android phones in China with Bing, Microsoft’s rival service, because of the uncertainty surrounding Google’s fate in the country.
Estimates from analysts and some Google insiders put the company’s annual revenue in China at $300 million to $600 million, a small fraction of Google’s nearly $24 billion in annual sales. But investors were counting on that strategically important business to grow rapidly.
“Having that potential is worth quite a bit to investors,” said Ben Schachter, an analyst with Broadpoint AmTech.
Google shares have lost nearly 6 percent of their value since the company said in January that it might pull out of China. During the same period, the Nasdaq 100 index rose by nearly 5 percent.
For his part, Sergey Brin, a Google founder and its president of technology, on Monday held out the possibility that some day Google and China would patch up their differences.
“Perhaps we can return to serving mainland China in the future,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Greens applaud Google over China ruckus
By Trevor Clarke, Computerworld Australia
March 23, 2010 04:51 PM ET
The Greens have welcomed Google’s decision to stop censoring the Internet in China and attempted to tie the issue to Australia’s own ISP-level Internet content filter.
In a statement, Greens Senator Scott said Google’s decision, which came on the back of accusations by the company it had suffered attacks from inside China on the Gmail accounts of human rights activists, was the “first move in acknowledgement of the long-term futility of internet censorship”.
“We commend Google’s initiative, which is quite a contrast to the Rudd government’s meek approach to China,” Ludlam said.
The Greens telecommunications spokesperson described Google’s decision to start [[artnid: 340521 |redirecting users of filtered Google.cn to the company’s Hong Kong search site, Google.com.hk where it provides “uncensored search… specifically designed for users in mainland China” as an opportunity to develop a “more mature relationship” with the key trading partner.
“Google’s move in China has been followed by a highly critical submission on the Australian Government’s own plan to censor the internet, saying parents around Australia have the strong view that ‘the government’s proposal goes too far and would take away their freedom of choice around what information they and their children can access,” he said.
“Abandoning this ridiculous censorship proposal might also give our arguments more weight when trying to redefine our relationship with China.”
Quoting a Chinese official in the Internet section of the State Council Information Office the state news agency, Xinhua said it was “totally wrong” for the search giant to break a written agreement to censor the Internet made when it entered the Chinese market.
“We resolutely oppose the politicization of commercial problems, and express dissatisfaction and indignation toward Google’s unreasonable criticism and actions,” Xinhua paraphrased the official as saying.
Google’s decision came on the same day communications minister, Senator Stephen Conroy released submissions to Government’s proposed measures to increase accountability and transparency for Refused Classification material — in other words the often criticised ISP-level Internet content filter.
United States Declaration of Independence:
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security’.
I just obey the authority that is reasonable and elected by people. I just obey the authority that is for people’s benefits. I just obey the authority that is fair, righteous and believable.
I am waiting for the truth. During the argumentative time, I take both the efficiency of Chinese law and the benefit of Google’s business as understandable reasons. I am expecting a balance point to remove the contradiction between both. And problems can be solved in a civilized and peaceful way. After all, cooperation is good to China and Google and it has been proved by the past.
Well, everything is associated with politics; I really don’t like the idea. Why couldn’t we just cooperate with each other? I like my homeland, but I won’t stand by her only because this reason. I hope we could be friendly to everyone. In fact, we have the right to know the truth; we may help to resolve the problem only if we know it clearly.
When opening the explorer yesterday, I saw the message that Google has retreated from the mainland of china. , and I can not believe my eyes , until the explore no more appeared Google website .I feel ashamed about that, because I had begun to use English Google to search information , and came to like it .However ,after refreshing a few times ,it came out again! how happy I am! Referred to the reasons , what I want to say is that , there is no absolute freedom in the world ,in different country , there are different type of freedom ,which depends on the traditions of the country ,such as the law ,no matter how you think about ,it is the legal rules of the state at all .in a word , I am sorry to see the consequents ,but have to understand and accept it .
Everything has two sides. Google is good for Chinese to loading ,but there are a lot of reasons to cause Google problems in China. If it has no problems, I think it will not stop China government censoring. I believe my homeland has conscience ,so we always to be obedient and ready for any honest work for our government. I agree with the sentence that it is necessary to submit to the authorities ,not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. In fact ,I don’t want Google to leave China. I hope that China government and Google can communicate with each other to solve problems.
EDITOR’S NOTE: CHANGE YOUR BROWSER COUNTRY TO USA AND YOUR BROWSER LANGUAGE TO ENGLISH.
IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW, ASK A CLASSMATE OR TWO OR THREE OR HOWEVER MANY IT TAKES.
So regret that we cannot use google to search information. You know, Google is an important tool to help our research and study.I am so inloved with it. Yesterday I found Google was unuseful then searched for the truth in the net.But Chinese government haven’t responded to it explicitly. I hope Google and Chinese government can talk to each other and find beter solution instead of evacuating from the mainland market. I cannot get used to the days without Google.
As a foreign company,google should obey Chinese law,with no reason.I think it’s not wise enough that google quits Chinese market.What google did do not help solve the bifurcation between Chinese goverment and google,it just makes thing worse.Also,what google did do hurt some Chinese people’s heart,who have high loyalty to google’s service.Dose google think about that what it did(quitting Chinese market)will make a lot of troubles to Chinese customers who get used to google’s servise.Some customers might have to change their emails,some enterprises might have to pay more money to baidu because there is only one big search engine left in China then no one can compete with baidu.What google did this time earns itself reputation(maybe no reputation in China),but shows no respect to the Chinese customers who love google so much before.
The Google issue is definately a commercial matter, no matter what the company,the media and the government deliberately described, or even critisized, would neither influence the commercial relationship between china and abroad,nor damage the image of China in the whole world.Anyway, the romers are romers, and individual behaviour could not represent the consesus attitude toward china,which in all are totally promoted by the profit. Just relax, let it be, tens of thousands of companies will rush into china.
In fact, Google is convenient for our daily lives. I set the Google for my computer’s home page. It is inexcusable that Google wants to access Chinese intelligence. If Google is not the espionage of US, why it refuse the Chinese government’s censoring. I realize that Chinese government should protect national security. And the relationship between China and American should not turn bad because of this issue. Chinese government is wrong? Google is wrong? I think that the truth remains to be proven.
It hard to say if there is some political factors within google’s face out.
Anyway response to this is a pity from my opinion .Sino-Us relationship is the most important bilateral relations in the modern world. Whatever episodes surging it will trouble global economy recover. I hope that both Chinese government (propagandistic department and the like) and US president Obama (congress, State Council and so forth ) could deal it with patience and understanding but not a laissez-faire attitude.
I have heard this news yesterday. I had found that the domain name had change into google.hk, instead of google.cn. Up until now, I find it seems nothing ever changes, since every product of Google can be used freely. To be frank, I don’t know why Google has to leave China mainland. I just believe that every game should have a rule to follow. China has its own law and regulation. Now that every product of Google can be used, I don’t care much about why it moves to HK. However, I still hope that China government and Google can calm down and communicate with each other to solve this problem. After all, Google is very useful to the Chinese.
I think Google’s disappearance from China brings me lots of inconvenience. It is just a searching engine using by Chinese. It does not mention about Chinese sensitive political issues subjectively,just giving the objectively searching results to its users. However the sensor of Chinese government on internet keeps Chinses people away from the unfriendly words of foreigners or other unwholesome things and wants to consolidate the government. As we know,every country has its own governing ideology to maintain a harmonious society. Chinese government has its own reasons of its actions.
I just care about censorship. Censorship is always a controversial issue. While the other search engine companies kept silent, only Google stood out and said no. I greatly respect Google’s informal motto “Don’t be evil”. What Chinese government concerns is that Google may provide some improper messages if it doesn’t follow the government instructions, although the original information comes form third parties. What is improper depends on what? Most people in the world believe there’s nothing wrong with YouTube, but the Chinese government banned the website. Be confident and open-minded.
EDITOR’S NOTE: CHANGE YOUR BROWSER COUNTRY TO USA AND THE BROWSER LANGUAGE TO ENGLISH. USE FIREFOX ENGLISH.
As far as I know,to stand out of the search-engine companies, it’s absolutely essential to guarantee three key points –freedom of information, Technogical Innovation, and customers’ trust. If google really took these into consideration other than to design a conspiracy just like many people criticize, I respect it as a Long-term thinking company. However, In the immediate term, clearly the Chinese net user loses . What I most concern is that if ChinaNet will become a local area network someday, through which we know nothing about the world but those the government suppose us to.
We Chinese people should have the rights to know the truth and the freedom of speech.Any information, no matter positive or negtive, should be brought into the public.
Hope China will be a better place for companies from any countries to do business here.
And please minimize the negative efforts of this event.
Google is a corporation, if this event maintain as a business events, I will support it.But it asserts that it refused a politicalize internet on the one hand,and seeks help of American Gov on the other hand, it use politics to rival politics, it is stupid. I hate “harmony internet” of our gov, but i hate to be a gun of Google.
SO i hope BING will success.Baidu is rubish.
I think that Google is not responsible for chinese people who are used to Google service,and it is a reverse of the rule “donot be evil”.Also,the event of Google is a pure business action , when in Rome do as the Romans do;if I go to America,I think I must obey the American laws.If there exists some contradiction between my free actions and American laws,I think I shoud be accused if I want my free actions are prior to American laws by political measures.
I was just about to turn my search engine from Baidu.com to Google when I heard this news. And I think it will be a pity if Google choose to leave Chinese market. Now it automatically switches google.cn to google.com.hk, but many worry that whether the government would also block it. Until now, Google and Chinese government both insist their own standpoints and neither would like to cede ground. We do not know how this issue would go on, just wait and see. However, China is the largest internet market in the world, which is a great temptation to Google; on the other hand, Google fans in China would be reluctant to give up the search engine. Let’s hope that there will be a win-win solution!
I prefer Google to Baidu search engine since the truth has unveiled that Baidu arranges the searching results by how much they pay. Now I’m getting used to surf Google, especially the English version is easy to follow. I hope our government and Google can get this dispute well settled to benefit both Chinese netizens and the Google company itself.
Google issue has lasted for some time in China. I think most of us are eager to find a solution to solve this problem. I think maybe Google doesn’t want to do China’s dirty work now, but it may lose the largest customer in the future. Although Google’s new unfiltered Hong Kong-based search site had not been fully blocked by the Chinese government, it’s still at risk. As Google is a good research engine, I’m regretting that I can’t use the unfiltered Google in mainland now. I really hope the Chinese government and Google can find a win-win solution. I really don’t like that everything has a matter with the politics.
What a pity that Google leave China.I had used it almost everyday to search the things I want to know and I usually find it a good helper.But here is China,we have our regulation.Since our government make this decision,I think it has its concern.I hope a new “Google” will come back to China one day.
As is known to all,network censorship has existed in china for many years.And google has always been under surveilance since it came to china several years ago.With the Great Firewall of internet built by chinese censors,we cannot find out what we really want to see no matter whether we use the google’s search engine.So I really don’t understand why google has chosen to leave.Maybe it is manipulated by US government,or for the bussiness reasons.But the real truth still to be revealed in many years.Honestly speaking,I feel a bit sorry for google’s action.It is no use forcing chinese authority to change their practice and the conflict does no good to both sides of the event.
Our government devotes to building the world’s largest local area network. In China, we cannot get access to Facebook, Youtube and other famous websites. Now, Google chooses to leave Chinese Mainland because of the censorship. I feel terrible. I like Google and often use it. I appreciate what Google did. Google is a great company that breaks the traditional law about firms, which believes profit is the ultimate aim for a company. Google keeps its promise.
Every human being has right to know the truth. History witnesses this moment. And time will prove everything.
It is really regretful that Google declare their leaving. I do like using Google when I’m in the internet. I want to know the true reason about their departure. If it is just a business strategy, I respect the decision of Google, but if it refers to some political evens, I have nothing to say.
Actually I see the recent GOOGLE GATE as an acting of advertising.Google gave a declaration not long ago that it is going to retreat from china,but finally we see nothing.And this time,we still see nothing about leaving entirely.Google only changes its domain names,from “CN”to”cn.hk”,the same country!
As a company, chasing benefit is its born-intendency,we understand that.If a student has a healthy thought,there is no need for the teacher to blame him.So the GOOGLE GATE is only business,no thing about authorities.
I am sorry to hear that Google quit from China. As we know, each country has its own patterns. There is no absolute freedom in the world. What China is striving to prevent on the Internet is the flow of information that would pose a danger to national security and the interests of the society and the public. To some extent it is reasonable. Even due to the age of explosion information, the proliferation of information on the Internet, Chinese government has to take some measures to clean up the network. Therefore, foreign-funded enterprises must abide by Chinese laws and regulations, when they operating in China. I think this is the most basic respect for others. Meanwhile, Chinese government has a peaceful mood. He promised China would stick to the strategy of opening-up and the principle of mutual benefits, encouraged and pushed for the openness of Internet and its management according to its laws and regulations, which was common practice in all countries, and welcome foreign entrepreneurs to invest and do business in China within the law. So, I hope Google think from the Chinese government and the Chinese legal, truly serving the world people.
I have used google for more than 10years. I love it because he always gives us surprises .It keeps on doing what could make us live more comfortablely. It is of no use to say who is right in this issue. We lose a good friend .That is all.
I cannot figure out whether it is a good strategy for google but it must be a huge regret for China. Also, I cannot figure out a win-win situation for this issue. Fortunately, all the functions are still available to the mainland users and personally, I feel happy with that.
P.S. This thread is a real test of to what extent you get yourself struggled in immersion water and “learn to swim”.
I paid great attention about Google since the first time Google said it would like to move away. And then, we could still use google.cn and people said google would not leave because there’s a big market here.Ok,finally,google left. Media published that it’s not about politics, but we all know it’s not only about business.
It’s a pity I have to say.Now one more window is closed.I can understand why Hillary is so angry.
Now there’s no competition in engine market in China.Who will be the loser and who will be the winner?
When I heard the news that Google was considering retreating from China for the first time, I just think it is someone joking with us, and had a talk with my doormats. They all feel it is a pity for Google to do this. We all know that Google and Baidu is the most popular search site for Chinese, we get used to research English papers and some academic and formal news on Google web site while research Chinese papers and entertaining news on Baidu web site. Now Google really redirect traffic for its China search site to one based in Hong Kong for censoring reasons. This will disappoint many Chinese to see that Google and the Chinese government didn’t reach an agreement. It is also a loss to Google, I believe the market of China is attractive and benefit for Search Engine Company. However, it is luck to see that Google case do not affect China-US relations.
I don’t know why the government forbid the Google.We can not log on Facebook,Youtube and some other foreign websites.When I heard the news that Google was considering retreating from China for the first time, I just think it is someone joking with us, and I don’t believe it.I can not imagine without Google where should I ask when we have questions.I don’t like Baidu,just as when I search for something,the first information is useless.There are so many advertisements.I just get used to many Google’s products,there are so convenient and useful.I don’t think our government win the campaign.On the other hand,it is a an irreparable loss for us.I respect the Google’s choice and I hope that our government should be more prudent.I miss Google!
EDITOR’S NOTE: DOWNLOAD GOOGLE TOLOLBAR US WITH ENGLISH OR CHANGE YOUR BROWSER TO US AND ENGLISH
I said that Google has gone in the office. A colleague answered that, unusual, Google is of great courage, now the world’s major enterprises (especially luxury goods) are so proud of entering China, while Google dare to give up the huge Chinese market, unusual. I replied, it reminds me of a session about Chinese soccer – silly person, more money, and come quickly.
Yesterday morning, I searched Baidu for some material, Google can find, unfortunately Google can not be used, which badly worried me. No one can miss neither Google nor Baidu, because they have their own advantages, can also balance the development of the search industry and give users plenty choices. GMAIL now can be opened really slowly, in case of closing it completely,I wonder to save hundreds of e-mails and attachments – a tough problem.
To tell the truth, I feel sad to learn Google leave China. After all, a lot of work need to be done through Google search, and we can only use Google to find that. I think many people have the same feeling with me, what we can do to change this situation?
Google is a very powerful search engine, I very much to like my study with him as one of the tools, but any one company succeed in China’s continued to stay in business, they must be in line with China’s national conditions, we must realize localization They must respect the realities of China, also must abide by Chinese laws, China is not no more a company does not work, so, in order to continue in China, good business, strategic management is a very heavy task!
I was very shocked when I had known the news that google would pull out of China. Google is a very convenient search engine and its withdrawal from China certainly will have a negative impact on the user experience and China’s search engine market. However, being in China should comply with Chinese law and accept Chinese government’s examin. I hope the problem will be solved as soon as possible. I believe the cooperation will soon achieved again by China and google.
Google event has aroused hot debate on and off the internet, and among the debate, the role that Chinese government plays has been suspicious and criminated. We should admit that Chinese government is to blame in this event because it treats google in an unfair way. The reasons for Chinese government’s actions are various, not only are economic aspects but also political aspects. As we Chinese all know, central government feels like controlling the pubic opinion which they think would lead unharmonious factors and make the society in an state of misorder. Moreover, some bad opinions about China and central government is banned and filtrated from the Internet. And that is the main reason for the google event this time.
The rumor of Google’s quitting from the Chinese market had run for a long time. But when the news was finally announced by Google, I felt lost. As one of the most important search engines in China, Google has been connecting with our daily life a lot. It’s more professional in searching English papers and formal news with Google than Baidu, which is another important search engines in China. And now, Google retreats from the Chinese Mainland because of censorship. It will bring a great loss to both Google and hundreds of millions of netizens in China.
To Zoe Class 4C, please just read the recent new and the articles above. Google was not PULLED out of China but he himself withdrew from China’s market.
EDITOR’S NOTE: GOOGLE DID NOT LEAVE CHINA. HONG KONG IS CHINA, REMEMBER?
I don’t know why I can also use google to check things. Just in this moring I use google to find some data, so after reading this article I become confusing about this.
When I know the news, I felt very depressed for Google is a so convenient search engine especially searching some specialized information. But it seems that it is a situation that can’t savable. But when I learned the terrible truth of it, I want to say that Google must follow Chinese rules or leave our Chinese mainland. As we known that Google is going to withdraw its operation from Chinese market, if USA internet giant doesn’t want to abide by the rules of China, please leave peacefully. Each country has its own rules, there is no such a thing as absolute freedom. There is no reason for Chinese government to allow Google to do whatever it wants to do simply because it is an American company. Chinese government has the obligatory to prevent the spread of vulgar and evil, harmful information, so it is reasonable to intensify the censorship before it enters into the Chinese market. To those all kinds of accusation that Google have proposed, it is just an excuse of avoiding the responsibility.
EDITOR’S NOTE: GOOGLE HAS NOT LEFT CHINA. HK IS CHINA.
Frankly speaking, every website will be or once be attacked by hackers.Every government takes measures to supervise the public media for political good. Not only Chinese government checks the website, but also governments of other coutries. We have to admit the fact that the Chinese government is a little strict on checking the website.However, I don’t think it is the main cause for Google itself withdrew from China’s market .After all, the gonernment not only check strictly on Google , other search engines face the same problem. Therefore, in my opinion ,when consedering the reasons for the withdrawing from China’s market of Google ,the market cempetition factor can’t be ignored. In my daily life, I use the Baidu search engine more often than the Google engine. However, I know that Google does have rich study rescources ,especially the international acadamic recources.
EDITOR’S NOTE: GOOGLE HAS NOT LEFT CHINA. HK IS CHINA.
In my opinion, no matter what is the reason of Google’s leaving , It is harmful to both sides. Google had lost the enormous Chinese market, China had lost such a good search engine. But I still want to say, Google against a developing country is adverse to itself.
I think that Google’s events and the RMB exchange rate issue are two different things, not mentioned in the same breath. As the saying goes, not a radius of no rules. Whichever enterprises go abroad to develop itself, the sovereign state regulations should be complied with. What’s more, we also do not exclude Google. Chinese government promised that welcome foreign entrepreneurs to invest and do business in China within the law. However, it is the focus for appreciation of the RMB exchange rate issue which is concerned by global people. I think whether the appreciation of the RMB exchange rate should be based on the actual level of development of the national economy. As we all known, China has a large population.
Although these years China’s economic has developed by leaps and bounds, per standard of living is still remain to be improved. We should not only consider impacts in a country or in several countries. We are living in the same world; we should have sharp global perspective and friendly treat each country’s problems and strive to achieve a win-win situation.
EDITOR’S NOTE: GOOGLE IS STILL IN CHINA. HONG KONG IS CHINA. THE INTERNET LAWS ARE DIFFERENT IN HK, THAT IS ALL.
I want to say that google does give us some advantage in the past days,so more and more people like the engine to grabble information.But if the engine infrenge the Chinese people’ benefit,it is essential that our government takes measures to investegate the problem .I believe that if this situation happens in USA,the USA government also takes the same measures.
When I know the news, I think, this is nothing with me. Google give up the Chinese market, and moved from Beijing to Hongkong, it can not be affect my life. Because we have ours Baidu, frankly speaking I rarely used it in the past year, and I used baidu all the time. On the side, anyone must be abide by the Chinese law if you stay in China, and Google is also not excepted.
I was prepared for Google’s retreatment from China since it announced that it stopped filtering search result in its site but I still felt shocked when Google released its official announcement of leaving China. I think it’s a lose-lose situation that the internet users don’t want to see. For China, losing the world’s leading search company is no good for the development of searching engine company like Baidu because they lost a great competitor. For Google, losing the Chinese market, the world’s most potential searching business market will definitely affect its business development and the immediate response to this news was the drop of its share price. I hope both sides can figure out a proper way to handle the problem and Google’s retreatment will only be temperate.
Recently, the real reason that Google exited the Chinese market except Hongkong, caused a lot of suspicion.Since 2006 , Google has been entered China by enabling google.cn domain name, after almost four years of development, it just accounts for only about 20% of Chinese total search volume, which has a long distance to the 70% of the world .which tells us, following Japan, South Korea, Google developed so smooth in the past years in Europe and America but once again lost in East Asia. On Google China, its localization process is so slow and can not meet China’s social environment and the majority of Internet users’ habit, this is the real reason that it can not account for most of China’s search market share. Because this time is not entirely out of China , temporarily the Chinese search engine market will not change too much, but maybe it will change more in future.
EDITOR’S NOTE: YOU MEAN HONG KONG IS NOT A PART OF CHINA? REALLY?
Unfortunately，Google left China. More unfortunately, it never gets the sympathy of most Chinese people. Some of us shout, “Get out of China!” and others just don’t think it’s a big deal. I think that’s why Chinese government is so confident and can speak with “justice”.
“Foreign companies must abide by Chinese laws and regulations when they operate in China, ” The true meaning is that Foreign companies must abide by Chinese government’s laws and regulations. We just don’t know the distinction between Chinese government and China and Chinese people. That’s exactly what our government wants.
Due to the difference of capitalism and socialism, I believe cultures must have many distinctions to each other, let alone the administration of web site and the web culture. However, I feel satisfied that our countries can cooperate with each other to make the web recourse shared.
What’s more, I don’t think it’s a pity that Google transfer to Hongkong. Because we can also use it normally and maybe we will get more information from now on.
EDITOR’S NOTE: HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT HONG KONG IS A PART OF CHINA.?
When I heard Google will have to leave China, I was very shocked .At the same time ,I feel very sorry for Google.Because China is the world’s Internet users than any other country, this means that Google’s business would will lose a large market. Maybe one day, Google will once again return to China.
The censorship debate between Google and Chinese government is really fierce recently. Maybe it’s a farce just as the article says. Yesterday when my friend said to me that she can’t use Google for Search Engine, I realized it really a serious problem at that time. To me, it is difficult to clear the event up fully because I’m always a latecomer at those updated news. Why Google leave China? What’s the influence Google retreat from China? I’m sure the article clears it up. And what’s my opinion about the whole event? I totally agree the view: if Google can not accept the censorship, if Chinese government and Google can’t consult with each other and reach an agreement at last, it would have to leave. As for what’s the further effect of this event, I have no idea, but I believe both the Chinese government and the USA can handle the problem properly. So what we should do is do not meddle with it and just wait.