Google may exit China in April

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on March 19, 2010 at 11:26 AM

Google may may pull out China on April 10, and could announce its exit strategy as early as Monday, Telegraph.co.uk reported today. The dates originate from reports by China Business News, Bloomberg reported, which cite an unidentified Chinese sales agent for the company. However, Google has not confirmed the information, and a Google spokeswoman from Japan declined to comment.

The search giant has told employees in China that they could move to the company's U.S. headquarters or other offices in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Telegraph.

In January, Google announced it was rethinking how businesses was being done in China, following the breach of Gmail accounts belonging to Chinese human rights activists. The "highly sophisticated" cyber attacks originated from within China.

"These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered - combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web - have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China," David Drummond, senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer of Google stated in a Google blog post at the time.

In response to Google's high-profile announcement, China fired back, calling Google's action a "corporate maneuver." Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said there is "there is no exception for Google" in observing China's laws. "Foreign companies in China should respect the laws and regulations, respect the public interest of Chinese people and China's culture and customs and shoulder due social responsibilities."

Google's announcement that it will leave China underscores "the notion that China would continue to slowly evolve as a more tolerant nation," a Washington Post article stated.

"Without Google, our academic research will be seriously affected," Ma Yuanye, a 55-year-old biologist based in Kunming in southwest China told the Washington Post. "If Google is blocked, we will see nothing but darkness."