Google finally decided about the future of its Chinese search activities. Users visiting the mainland domain (Google.cn) are now being redirected to the Hong Kong domain (Google.com.hk). The reason being that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (中華人民共和國 香港特別行政區) doesn’t have the same filtering of search results requirements as the mainland authorities do.

The very likely next step is that Google.com.hk may be blocked in the mainland. And Google knows this very well: “We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services.”

This is where Google is strategically clever. The company will be able to say that it didn’t completely stop its mainland search activities by its own will; that the authorities blocked them.  They will be able to pose as the unwilling victim (even if they knew exactly what would happen). Thus less questions will be asked about the attitude of a company which speaks as if it was morally superior and pretends to give lessons to a country’s government. It has to be noted that at the same time Google expects big profits from the sales of mobile phones based on its Android software in that same country.

China has a long tradition of strategic thinking and Google’s move will be recognised for what it is. Not more, not less.

Google’s blog post

Following are  some thoughts and observations about the state of Google’s affairs in China. Statements are uttered, allegations are made, lots of speculation everywhere; but it seems much too early to draw any conclusions.

- Two big communications by Google about its China (ex?) activities in the same week. The two announcements couldn’t have been more different in tone and language.

• 1. Google’s letter to the Chinese Writers Association: apologies written in Chinese.
• 2. Google’s blog post “A new approach to China”: a statement, written in English, that Google has been led to “review the feasibility of its business in China”.

Big organisation, different departments, different people could explain for these differences.

- In its blog post Google names attacks on Gmail accounts. For these reasons, Google says it is no longer willing to work with the Chinese government in filtering its search results. The causality is not straightforward and nowhere in its blog post does Google say who was behind the attacks. Of course it is strongly suggesting. If this is the reason why the company is willing to go so far as to pull out of the country, why not be more direct?

- As noted by some commentators, Google’s business in China hasn’t been extremely successful.

- Google is an organisation, that has its own vision of the world, clearly split between Good and Evil. By giving itself the injunction “do no evil”, the company attributes itself the supreme power of judging between Good and Evil.

- If Google pulls out of China, will this mean no more Android based mobile phones in China? What would Dell and others say?

- How do Google’s CEO recent declarations about privacy fit with all this?

to be continued…