UPDATE 4:53 pm - Just hours after Google Inc. announced it would shift its search engine off the mainland in order to stop censoring the Internet for China, officials in China are accusing the company of violating written promises.
In a statement on the official Xinhua News Agency, an official at the Internet bureau under the State Council Information Office was quoted as saying “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.”
The official continued: “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.”
Google Inc. is trying to route around Chinese web censorship, shifting its search engine for the country off the mainland but not shutting down altogether. It will maintain other operations in the country.
The maneuver attempts to balance Google’s disdain for China’s internet censorship with its desire to profit from an explosively growing market.
Clayton Dube of the U.S.-China Institute talks about Google's interest in catering to China's citizens.
Visitors to Google.cn were being redirected this afternoon to Google’s Chinese-language service based in Hong Kong. Google does not censor those results, but Chinese government filters can still restrict the results that are seen by mainland audiences.
The site also began displaying search results in the simplified Chinese characters that are used in mainland China.
“Welcome to Google Search in China’s New Home,” the Hong Kong Page announced.
Google has been in a 2 ½-month standoff with the Chinese government.
It plans to keep its engineering and sales offices in China so it can keep a technological toehold in the country and continue to sell ads for the Chinese-language version of its search engine in the U.S.
The Mountain View based company also intends to keep its mapping and music services on Google.cn.
Google may be taking a financial risk though as the revolt against censorship threatens to crimp Google’s growth, especially if taking the stand prompts the Chinese government to retaliate by making it more difficult for the company to do business in the country.
Analysts believe China will not want to lose Google completely because it might be interpreted as a setback in the government’s efforts to be more innovative.
Google wants to stay in China to keep hiring computer programmers and peddling ads in the country. The company is also looking to lead China into looser rules on censorship that would allow it to revive its search engine in the country.
Google set up a search engine inside China in 2006, and had to comply with rules requiring omission of search results that the government deemed subversive or pornographic.
On January 12 of this year, the search company said it was no longer comfortable playing by the rules after it determined that Google and more than 20 other U.S. companies had been targeted in computer hacking attacks originating from China.
Despite the company’s outrage, Google tried to persuade the Chinese government to let it run a search engine with unrestricted results. When it failed, Google tried to find enough common ground to maintain its research center and sales team in the country.
It is unclear whether Google’s attempt to route around China’s censorship rules by using Hong Kong as a back door will provoke more hostility.
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did not issue an immediate comment early Tuesday in Beijing.
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UPDATE 4:53 pm - Just hours after Google Inc. announced it would shift its search engine off the mainland in order to stop censoring the Internet for China, officials in China are accusing the company of violating written promises.
