Companies
07/08/2018

Chinese State Media: Google Welcome In China If It Follows Laws




An opinion piece published in the state-backed newspaper People's Daily welcomes Google into China provided that the US tech giant follows the law. This piece was published after there were reports that Google is contemplating launching of censored model of its search engine in the country.
 
The news was first published in The Information where it claimed that Google is planning a relaunch of its search engine in the Chinese market after keeping out certain websites and search terms. Google was forced to leave China in 2010 following strict censorship.
 
But privacy advocates are concerned with the latest move by Google because they claim that this move would keep away information from the internet that the government of China does not like or is opposed to the view point of the government. But a different view has bene taken by the China’s state-backed media.
 
"Regardless of its withdrawal, or whether it can regain access to the mainland, Google has been a politicized brand. This is undoubtedly a tragedy for this well-known multinational company," People's Daily wrote in an article published Monday.
 
"The decision to exit the Chinese market was a huge blunder, which made the company miss golden chances in the mainland's internet development."
 
People's Daily said Google is "welcome to return to the mainland, but it's a prerequisite that it must comply with the requirements of the law."
 
The so-called Great Firewall of China implements those requirements. The Great Firewall is a very large policy of censorship. For example, Google can't be accessed right now by most Chinese internet users. also blocked are many other online services including Facebook. And if some websites are considered to be unfavorable, they can also be censored.
 
Reports however stated that the online link to the opinion piece was later removed and was not accessible. However, by the time this was done, some reports had already appeared based on the opinion piece.
 
The stand on the Chinese government on online censorship was justified by People's Daily saying that "no country will allow the internet to be filled with pornography, violence, subversive messages, ethnic separatism, religious extremism, racism and terrorism." This is far from the truth because sexual content and pornography and racism can be found online in many countries.
 
No direct comments about the People's Daily article was made by Google but reiterated its original statement that the company had released when the new first made headlines where it had said that the company offers a number of apps in China and significant investments has bene made by it in companies in Mainland China like JD.com. "But we don't comment on speculation about future plans," a spokesperson said.
 
Reacting to the news that Google could launch a search engine in China, the CEO of the biggest search engine in the market Baidu, Robin Li said that the strength of Chinese companies would have to be contended with by Google.
 
"Over the years, our industrial environment and scale of development have undergone earth-shaking changes. Chinese technology companies have already taken the lead in the world in discovering new issues and serving new demands. The world is copying from China. This is what every international company that wants to enter the Chinese market needs to confront and think about," Li said in a status update on messaging service WeChat.
 
(Source:www.cnbc.com)
 

Christopher J. Mitchell
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