The Google China row that will go away
China and the U..S increased their war of words this week, locking horns over the Internet, 24th January. The Chinese Communist Party’s main newspaper, The People’s Daily, commented that America is allegedly seeking “control” of the Internet.
Comments made previously by Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State, had pulled no punches. She alleged that governments use Internet and communications technologies to “repress people, naturally with China inferred in this comment. As a result of Google threatening to pull out of China in the previous week claiming that sophisticated hacking attacks targeting Google mail accounts had originated in the People’s Republic of China, Clinton stated further that “Chinese authorities need to provide an explanation for the cyberattacks originating on Chinese soil that led Google to this decision”. As she criticized states such as China for continued censorship of internet content, the article in the People’s Daily is seen to be a direct rebuttal of these remarks.
The Chinese article maintained that “In the eyes of American politicians, only when information is controlled by the U.S. does it count as free information.” The piece attacked the U.S. and its recent call for internet freedom as a double standard. The article posed the question as to whether a Chinese company operating in the U.S. not comply with U.S. law, intimating that a “no limits” internet was not the best way and certainly does not comply with Chinese law. As Google have recently indicated that they may likely require a stop to censorship of their results by the Chinese authorities if they are to remain within the country, the People’s Daily article seems to indicate that this would not comply with China’s laws, and as such, the demands are an imposition and would not be tolerated the other way around if this were the U.S..
The Xinhua news agency, a Chinese state-run news department quoted and unnamed Chinese official as saying these “hacker” attack claims by Google were “entirely baseless”. It reported further that no details have been provided by Google to these Chinese authorities regarding the alleged hacking incidents.
Although concerns of state-sponsored hacking do cause concern, nevertheless the comments made regarding “complying” within the law of a country seem totally reasonable. A Chinese company in the U.S. flouting U.S. law would not be tolerated, so why should the reverse be acceptable in China. Google’s threats of pulling out of China has made big news, but why would the Chinese government or its people care? Despite Google’s dominance in many counties, it still plays second fiddle to China’s own Baidu search engine. In China search engine marketing terms, there are a host of other engines such as Sina, Sohu and Yahoo-China ready to pick up the pieces.
So whilst we in the West may have a love affair with Google, the impact of them pulling out of China is more likely to affect their own future more than anything else. With the Chinese online economy growing as it is, is this a decision Google are likely to take? It would be a brave one. Google results shows how the one thing that originally made them great, search relevance, is becoming poorer with more effort being pushed to revenue generation through sponsorship and advertising. It is to be doubted Google would turn their back on the Chinese opportunity in their current phase.
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