After two moths of tussle with Beijing over censorship and alleged hacking into its system, the search engine giant Google closed out its Chinese website and and shifted its base to uncensored Hong-Kong, late on March 22 night. However, those who were rerouted to Hong Kong are still unable to access sensitive websites because the Chinese filters block all the content reaching mainland.

“The Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement,” wrote David Drummond, chief legal officer of Google on his blog. “We are well aware it could at any time block access to our services,” he added.

The daring act of ceasing its operations in the world’s third largest economy, and the biggest online market with almost 384 million netizens, left a big question mark on the Google’s future operations in China.

According to the NYT, china’s biggest cellular communications company, China Mobile, is also likely to cancel its deal to use Google search on its mobile internet home page. Following its footsteps is the China Unicom, the second largest cell phone operator, which will also drop the search function from new phones using Google’s Android mobile operating system.

Now whether the Google’s R&D and Advertising operations with almost 600 employees in Beijing will thrive or not is yet to be seen.

“You sort of make China look like the bad guy and you think you’re going to be selling Google phones? Good luck,” Colin Gillis, analyst for BGC Financial, told Reuters.

Beijing reacted quickly to Google’s announcement calling it ‘totally wrong’ and saying it “violated the written promise”, Google made when entering the China four years ago, assuring to self-censor its online services to conform to the Chinese law. In a recently launched campaign, the Chinese state media has accused Google of trying to export western culture in china.

Thereafter, spokesman for the foreign ministry Qin Gang said that Google fallout would not hamper Sino-US relations, unless some people try to politicise it.

Hong Kong-based expert on Chinese Internet, Rebecca MacKinnon, wrote on her blog, “the ball is now in the Chinese government’s court.”

She said it would be smarter of the Chinese government to leave the situation as it is and stop putting their censorship practices in media glare. She noted that the more this high-profile battle stretches, the greater will be the Chinese Netizens’ awareness about the extent to which their government goes to narrow their knowledge of the world. Chinese government believes its citizens require strict censorship. Earlier, you tube was blocked in 2008 after the Tibet riots. Last year it blocked Facebook and Twitter after Xinjiang riots in July 2009.

Tej Kohli is an entrepreneur cum philanthropist  from Costa Rica. To know more about him, follow the links below:

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