Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Google preps China exit

By Larry Dignan | March 13, 2010, 11:58am PST

Summary: According to the Financial Times, Google is 99.9 percent sure it will close Google.cn. The writing was on the wall on Friday when the Chinese government said that Google has to follow local laws or face the consequences.

Google is reportedly set to close its Chinese search engine.

According to the Financial Times, Google is 99.9 percent sure it will close Google.cn. The writing was on the wall on Friday when the Chinese government said that Google has to follow local laws or face the consequences.

The FT portrayed a situation where both China and Google had hardened their positions. The news isn’t all that surprising. China wasn’t going to cave to Google or it would open a Pandora’s Box where other Web companies would stop censoring results. And Google boxed itself in with its stance two months ago.

In January, Google said that it was attacked from within China. From there, Google said that it would stop censoring its search results and has stuck to that position.

Oliver Marks: Baidu: Check out anytime you like, but you can never leave…

What remains to be seen is how quickly Google can unwind its China operations. The FT reports:

While a decision could be made very soon, the company is likely to take some time to follow through with the plan as it seeks an orderly closure and takes steps to protect local employees from retaliation by the authorities, the person familiar with its position said.

More: Assessing Google’s showdown with China

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Topics

China, Google Inc., Government, Vertical Industries, Search, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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It's not that terrible

Google can be proud of its "Don't be evil" and now they can say it is safe to work with us. From this experience, Google can ensure Western organizations that their cloud services are free of spying (at least from China). It doesn't mean it is safe from Western governments but these governments have to fight hard in court to get information of Google users. This is for sure one of many many reasons why Google would let go China but it is not that bad for Google.
greenoil
13th Mar 2010
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To h3ll with China.

Time to reset national priorities.

Tariff them into submission!
DTS Linux Advocate
13th Mar 2010
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I'm about ready for tariffs..

but we must look back at history, when they started many a war, and even World War I, by many experts opinion.

You could say the depression led to World War II; the world market almost went their and may still; are you ready to go to WW III?

Are you ready to send your sons, daughters, relatives to such an end?

We should never forget history.

However if I were a negotiator at the G7 summits; I'd definitely threaten to use them, and in the right case, I'd deliver.
JCitizen
15th Mar 2010
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Yes

Reset national priorities: let the USA mind its own business. When senior officials like Karl Rove are proud of the nation's guantanamos and bagrams, isn't it time to keep a very very low profile on human rights?

And "tariff them into submission"? Um, not only will you put Walmart's out of business, but a substantial number of other multinationals will be freaking out too: over half of Chinese exports come from subsidiaries of the multinationals: you're messing with their intercompany trade and bottomlines, man!
arthurborges@...
15th Mar 2010
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Tell them where to stick the fried lice (nt)

(nt)
croberts
13th Mar 2010
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Oh c'mon

Google was founded in part with CIA cash; if the NSA was involved in the development of Windows 7, it has a finger in the Google pie too. Sorry, but these polices don't wait for court approval to eavesdrop and it would be a sorry day if they did.

As for Chinese food, what you're eating in the USA is a dumbed-down version of Cantonese cuisine. There is so, so much more and it's mostly exquisite.
arthurborges@...
15th Mar 2010
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Corporations telling governments where to get off

Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, EVERYWHERE.

Matters little if it is by means of implied threat, payolla, or public relations smears: the global ONE WORLD ORDER mustn't lose focus.

Problem is, I'm never sure which of these two "necessary evils" is worse! How fun, though, to witness the usually lock-stepped, twin-headed GOV/CORP dragon turning its fangs upon itself.

Disruptions like these usually depend on whether Yin [gov] or Yang [corp] is being more pigheaded at any given time. Both would sell out their respective mothers at the drop of a hat, if it guaranteed they could line their pockets - or increase their influence - more.

Until one world (aka corporate) harmony reasserts itself, let the fireworks begin! This time set rather fittingly under Chinese skies.
klumper
13th Mar 2010
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Um

All I fathom of your contribution is that you do have a grasp of yin/yang. As one proverb goes, "To be truly happy, you need a good enemy."

The fall of the USSR has triggered disruption that have cost millions of lives as the USA experienced a self-made existential threat: it had no real enemy left and the only way it could cope with that was to go on a Crusade against an enemy it had to drag up out of the 12th century and the days of King Louis IX.

Although Chinese society has her share of rip-off artists, this is essentially a society based on tight family ties and strong social networking that places strong emphasis on win/win solutions in problem-solving situations.

Any "fireworks" would be lose/lose.

Not Chinese.
arthurborges@...
16th Mar 2010
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Sort of Ironic

Google - the company that poo-poos privacy as being a
thing of the past, has a problem with a totalitarian
regime...hmmm. Pot calling the kettle black maybe.
jpr75_z
13th Mar 2010
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For sure..

seems to me to be the same thing also.
JCitizen
15th Mar 2010
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Yup

Reuters interviewed a bunch of Chinese researchers who all said Google was really important to them. Unfortunately, the resulting news item failed to mention that only google.cn would be shut down and google.com would continue to be accessible, so the whole article was empty hype. This is unusual for Reuters, but hey, maybe the journalist was a newbie.
arthurborges@...
16th Mar 2010
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Evewryone needs to leave

Any American or Western company should leave as well. They're obviously not that interested in dealing with outside companies.

Block any incoming Chinese IP while they're at it.
Cylon Centurion
13th Mar 2010
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We cannot do that

The fact is that China is over 1/6th of the world's population, and the United States and other countries CANNOT just drop out of China unless they want China to pull all of their money out of the United States and other countries, which would bankrupt us totally.
Lerianis10
14th Mar 2010
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True

China is about 1.3 billion out of 6.8 billion folks right now.

It's essentially North America and the European Union who are operating here. Boeing and Airbus manufacture airliner components here; there are R&D centers too.

Although governments cannot go bankrupt by definition, China could crash the US dollar's value by dumping about USD 1.2 trillion in Treasury certificates. Central banks worldwide would be buying dollars at the value of their weight as scrap paper. Any fast trade would be in barter. The US would have to rebuild its industrial base on the cheap, i.e. expect US worker wages to collapse in the process.

China would be hurting, but it has a diversified economy and a huge domestic market. It would climb out of the total worldwide economic mess faster than the USA or the E.U.

Nobody wants to go there: collapsing empires (e.g. USA) tend to find militaristic escape hatches -- like Germany tried to not so long ago.
arthurborges@...
16th Mar 2010
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Um

Nobody wants to go there: collapsing empires (e.g. USA) tend to find militaristic escape hatches -- like Germany tried to not so long ago.

Well just in the name of accuracy, Germany's "empire" was not collapsing; it was instead expanding (radically) under the Third Reich. The Germans built their empire from mostly internal consolidation (Prussian based unification, under Bismarck) subsequent to the Holy Roman era, as opposed to outright military conquest of mostly foreign territory (as it was when German based, under Hitler).

In any case, any empire the Deutsch had attained wasn't "collapsing" by running out of inertia. What Hitler sought to address was the economic collapse and subjugation of the German nation at the hands of foreign powers after WWI, as well as the spread of communism from within, and not the inexorable demise of a former or ongoing empire.

Only after this was accomplished did he turn his attention to what could be called empire building, and that was anything but an "escape hatch" maneuver as it was being forged to last for 1000 years from the get-go. If you want to speak of "collapsing empires," it might better point to imperialist Britain -- or even the (former) communist Soviet Union fabricated under Lenin and Stalin.

As for our Americana empire, well, that's another story - one best left lost to our hopelessly pinheaded, capitalist class.
klumper
16th Mar 2010
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