Google-China split would be loss for both sides

• Source: Global Times
• [00:50 January 14 2010]
• Comments

Google CEO Eric Schmidt had a famous "5,000-year plan" for China, "We will take a long-term view to win in China. The Chinese have 5,000 years of history. Google has 5,000 years of patience in China."

Yet Schmidt's promised patience for developing in China seems to be fading away now. The company's "threat" to pull out of China amid concerns over censorship and cyber attacks has shocked the world and brought down Google's share price by 1.3 percent.

The price dip reflects investors' worries over a huge potential business loss from the parting of ways. With its roughly 33.2 percent share of China's $1 billion search market in 2009, Google's possible exit would signal that it is giving up a booming Chinese market with 350 million Web surfers.

Its strategic loss would be greater than its business loss.

While other search engines, Chinese and foreign, would predictably grab a slice of the business abandoned by Google, the Internet giant's inability to localize and tackle difficulties in China would be an incalculable loss to its long-term commitment to innovation.

Google's "New approach to China," as spelled out in the title of its recent statement, would do no good to China, either.

Should the world's most populous nation fail to provide a foothold to the world's top search engine, it would imply a setback to China and serious loss to China's Net culture.

The information highway demands not only safe driving but also free flow of traffic. And, in the interests of the majority's right to know, free flow of information should take precedence in a civil society.

In a transitional society like China, the existence of censorship can be justified as allowing full play to multifarious and disorderly search results poses unprecedented risks to vulnerable netizens and social stability. But the government must face up to the challenge of where and how to put the checkpoints on the highway.

A sensitive and shrewd government should have the vision and savvy to place the right kind of checkpoints at the right place and at the right time for ensuring the free flow of highway traffic as much as possible in the public interest.

When Google entered China's market about five years ago, it named itself "Gu Ge" (Grain Song) in Chinese. Google and China going their separate ways would hurt both sides.

Let the song of sowing and expectation continue to be heard in China, for a win-win situation.