rss feedGoogle and China: Killing the chicken to frighten the monkey
The Chinese government has started blocking Hong Kong-based Google.cn, a day after the California technology company announced it was shifting its servers from Beijing to the former colony, The New York Times reported.
Google on Monday started to operate Google.cn without filters.
One fallout from the highly-watched spat stemming from hacked Google Gmail accounts and reports of stolen code is that Chinese and Hong Kong companies are ending relationships with the California company, or at least halting them for now.
From The New York Times:
China’s biggest cellular communications company, China Mobile, was expected to cancel a deal that had placed Google’s search engine on its mobile Internet home page, used by millions of people daily. In interviews, business executives close to industry officials said the company was planning to scrap the deal under government pressure, despite the fact that China Mobile has yet to contract with a replacement. Similarly, China’s second-largest mobile company, China Unicom, was said by analysts and others to have delayed or killed the imminent introduction of a cellphone based on Google’s Android platform. One major Internet portal, Tom.com, already had ceased using Google to power its search engine.
Bloomberg reported that Tom Online – a business of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing – is no longer using Google’s search engine.
On Monday – the same day that Google followed up on its January pledge to change the way it operates in China – the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in China reported that the view of U.S. businesses in the most populous country has dimmed, according to media reports.
Yet also on Monday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told a group of visiting U.S. business leaders that China remains open to international investment and that it would begin to accept more imports, according to CCTV, the Chinese television network.
And Chinese media outlets are running stories talking about how the issue will not affect U.S.-China relations – that is, unless “someone” decides to make it a political one.
The People’s Daily offers this article about how its writer thinks the world views China, including this opening passage:
China and the world are getting closer. The world is having a more vivid and clear understanding of China. A long history, brilliant cultures, diligent people and full vitality all compose the beautiful landscape of China in the world.
The BBC has interviews with technology watchers, both in the United States and China.
NOTE: Events are changing fast. I’ll try and update this blog with news and commentary as often as I can.
Nuance and diplomacy are important in any state-to-state or business relationship. The only catch with China is that there is a true tradeoff when entering its business market. That is, to gain market share, international businesses need to adhere to the country’s rules and laws and what senior Chinese leaders want.
At times, those rules and laws can be unclear – and open to interpretation.
As one observor pointed out, there’s a diversity of Chinese government leaders.
If Chinese authorities welcome visitors and businesses without being clear about what can and cannot be done in the beginning but change their minds once operations become established, then tensions can bubble up.
I should say that I offer that sentence in a general context. Google was well aware of the guidelines of entering the China market and the events unfolded only after the company learned of the hacking cases.
But my sense is that the ordinary Chinese person recognizes the issue of authorities being vague.
