Google searches for truce in China

Beijing, China (News Today) - When Google revealed the latest instalment in its dispute with the Chinese government on Tuesday, it took a while for it to be heard.

The company said Beijing had threatened not to renew its licence in the country, but in stark contrast to the outcry among Chinese bloggers following Google's announcement in January that it was considering a retreat from China, the echo in Chinese cyberspace was weak on Tuesday.

The difference was largely psychological. At the beginning of the year, the US internet group decided it would not continue to operate under China's strict internet regulations which require search engines in the country to filter content disapproved by the state.

The open challenge that Google issued to Beijing over censorship triggered fears that China's internet would be cut off from the rest of the world and roused the feelings of advocates of free speech and democracy.

Compared with the January statement of principles, the solution that Google presented two months later -- automatically redirecting visitors of its mainland Chinese site to its uncensored Hong Kong web search service -- was a bit of an anticlimax.

The latest step is even more of a technical compromise.

Party over for Beijing's Google set

After Beijing voiced its objection to the way Google was diverting mainland internet users to the Hong Kong site, the company has now stopped the automatic redirect function and requires users of Google.cn to click on a link before they are taken to Google.com.hk. On the basis of this tweak, the US company says it hopes Beijing will agree to renew its licence as an internet content provider -- the precondition of keeping the China site open.

But observers believe that the latest episode is more likely to become the final showdown in Google's battle of wills with Beijing than a mere technical switch would suggest.

"[Getting the licence renewed] will be almost impossible because the authorities obviously can't allow a foreign company to win both political points at home and profits here," said a commentator on Twitter named Wang Pei.

The company insisted on Tuesday that the new China set-up would satisfy Beijing's demands but without a licence, Google would have to shut down the Google.cn site completely. It would also remain to be seen whether mainland users could continue to access Google's international sites from behind the country's firewall.

Google is believed to be running out of alternative solutions to offer Beijing as a compromise over the censorship issue and Chinese internet users are fearing impending isolation.

The reason Google users in China feel so strongly about the American search engine is that Google's dispute with Beijing comes amid a far-reaching tightening of the authorities' grip on the internet which started in early 2009 and has not eased off.

This week, Beijing is expected to issue licences for the first time for online mapping services -- a business which had not been required to apply for licences before.

The government said on Tuesday that one foreign company had applied for a licence, but it was unclear whether this was Google.

Beijing has also greatly tightened restrictions on who is allowed to own and register websites in China with a wave of new rules restricting individuals since last year.

At the same time, the government has reined in social media by blocking foreign services including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, closing the leading local one and installing additional content controls at other domestic services.

Although Google's market share in China in terms of search traffic never exceeded 30 per cent, the threat that it could leave the country seems to Chinese users as if another door is closing.

"If they are completely driven out, the propaganda department will control all the taps on content flowing on to the Chinese internet," said an employee at Sohu, a leading Chinese internet portal. "They can just block anything they don't like."

Turbulent times between Google and China

1999 Google is founded

2000 Google begins offering a Chinese-language version of Google.com

Autumn 2002 Google.com becomes unavailable in China. Access is largely restored within about two weeks

January 2006 Google.cn is launched amid widespread criticism. Google agrees to block certain websites in return for being able to run a local Chinese service. The unfiltered Chinese-language Google.com is available

June 2006 Google.com blocked in China, while Google.cn continues to work

September 2007 Google.cn receives a licence from Beijing, allowing it to officially operate in China

December 2008 Beijing widens a media campaign against Baidu, China's biggest internet search engine. Companies, including Google, are criticised for running ads from non-licensed medical websites, threatening to throw the Chinese online ad market into disarray

January 2009 Chinese regulators criticise Google for making pornography available in its search

June 2009 Chinese regulators "punish" Google China for failing to remove pornographic content from search results, including a suspension of its ability to search foreign websites

January 2010 Google says it will end censorship of its search service in China and is prepared to pull out of the market

March 2010 Google announces it has stopped censoring its search services on its local Chinese service. All search requests on Google.cn are now being redirected to Hong Kong arm

June 2010 Beijing threatens to shut it down by the end of June

Source : CNN

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