Googles hopes of retaining a foothold in China remained intact yesterday after the Chinese Government played down its row with the company over censorship.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Googles closure of its search engine on mainland China should not damage wider Sino-US relations. Googles other web services in China, such as Gmail, maps and a popular music search feature, remained unblocked.
The statement from Qin Gang, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, was more modulated in tone than an earlier angry tirade from the State Council Information Office and appeared to leave the door open for Google to continue operating in the country.
Mr Qin said that the Government would handle the Google case according to the law and any repercussions would not damage ties between China and the United States, which are already strained amid a currency dispute.
Related LinksQA: Google, China and censorshipComment: beyond ironyGoogle wins court victory over Louis VuittonMultimediaIN FULL: Google statement on ChinaGoogle has moved its Chinese search service to Hong Kong, where it is not required to censor results. The company believes that this loophole allows it to legally carry out its threat made two months ago that it would quit the mainland market if it were required to continue to submit to censorship after cyberattacks originating in China.
The move to Hong Kong was an early obvious solution, people close to the negotiations between Google and China told The Times. The move shifts responsibility for censorship from Googles China operation to the Chinese authorities.
Duncan Clark, managing director of BDA China Ltd, a technology market research firm, said: Its a balancing act. They are trying to leave but not leave, stay but not stay. Users in China of the google.cn site are automatically redirected to the Hong Kong service, which offers results in the simplified Chinese characters used in mainland China, as well as the traditional characters favoured in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.
However, searches for sensitive topics are blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Searches from Beijing for Dalai Lama and Tiananmen Square Massacre cannot be displayed and the computer freezes.
Googles move rewinds the status quo to before 2006, when Google opened its google.cn search site in China, agreeing to provide its own censored results. But Beijing may yet run out of patience with Googles solution. Googles strategy leaves the google.com.hk search engine vulnerable to a total blockade. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which is owned by Google, are completely shut out of the mainland.
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