John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

China to Google: Go Ahead and Leave, Ya Big Loser

China’s state-run news media are ramping up their anti-Google rhetoric amid reports that Google will soon announce the closure of its Chinese-language search engine. This morning, China Daily accused Google of political chicanery and warned the company that it will be “the biggest loser” if it pulls out of the Chinese market.

“Business is business,” the publication wrote. “But when it involves political tricks, business will come to an end soon. The more Google politicizes the issue, the less room it leaves for itself for further negotiations. And netizens here, who are known for their inclination for novelties, will simply move on to other search engines if Google pulls out of a large and growing market. The US company will be the biggest loser in all of this.”

China Daily’s editorial echoed a similar piece published a day earlier by China’s official Xinhua News Agency. It, too, accused Google (GOOG) of acting as a foreign-policy arm of the U.S. government.
The company is “politicizing” its threatened withdrawal from the country, Xinhua said, adding that accusations that Beijing had supported a hacker attack against the company are “groundless.”

“It is a great pity that the Google case told us the company’s aim of entering the Chinese market seems not for commercial reasons but to act as a tool to penetrate into the Chinese culture as well as into Chinese people’s values,” Xinhua wrote. “It is ridiculous and arrogant for an American company to attempt to change China’s laws. The country doesn’t need a politicized Google or Google’s politics.”

And then there was this from Sing Tao Daily: “I’m not sure if Google knows that its arrogance can easily remind the Chinese people of the ‘big powers’ that cracked open China’s door by warships and cannons in the 19th century….The only difference was military weapons in the past and Internet service today.”

Clearly, tensions between Google and China are escalating, and quickly. At this point, Google’s closure of its Chinese search engine seems more an inevitability than anything else.

Twitter’s Tanking

December 30, 2013 at 6:49 am PT

2013 Was a Good Year for Chromebooks

December 29, 2013 at 2:12 pm PT

BlackBerry Pulls Latest Twitter for BB10 Update

December 29, 2013 at 5:58 am PT

Apple CEO Tim Cook Made $4.25 Million This Year

December 28, 2013 at 12:05 pm PT

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

There’s a lot of attention and PR around Marissa, but their product lineup just kind of blows.

— Om Malik on Bloomberg TV, talking about Yahoo, the September issue of Vogue Magazine, and our overdependence on Google