First, I believe there’s much more to this than what they let appear on that post. They’re just playing nice.

Then, this

…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.

could mean that they likely pull out of China all together, if things didn’t work out.

My personal take is that they won’t  [BS detector is going haywire]. The Chinese online market is huge and only in its baby steps; they can’t afford to leave. I believe Google is using the publicity of this event to further negotiate their place within China as well as  try to get the Chinese government to ease up on their favoritism towards Baidu, among other things. The blog post is carefully worded as to not directly point the finger to the Chinese government, but hey, who are we kidding.

Big G doesn’t want to lose. They’re frustrated but won’t do the ebay thing. They know they can’t go head to head with the Chinese to get what they want, so they’ll be using this as a bargaining chip on the table over the next few weeks. Google is playing sneaky and they will eventually get what they want. If they don’t, I’ll eat my hat.

All this, in addition to the recent decision by CCNIC to not accept .cn domain registrations except from registered businesses within China [ including businesses outside of China but with delays ] due to recent government regulations, does not paint a rosy picture about China’s business environment, at least for now.

dot China

Quote from China Software Information Network.

Chinese domain name global visit, which means that the whole Chinese Internet era has come. 中文域名具有简单易记、使用方便、覆盖面广、承载品牌形象等特点，它在全球的成功应用，不仅会给全球华人访问互联网带来便利，还会推动国内企业的品牌推广，提高企业的知名度和美誉度，甚至还会提升中国在世界互联网的影响力。 Chinese domain name has a simple and easy to remember, easy to use, covering a wide range, bearing characteristics of brand image, its successful application in the world, not only will bring about world-wide Chinese access to the Internet to facilitate, but also promote the brand promotion of domestic enterprises to improve the visibility of corporate and reputation, and even the Internet will enhance China’s influence in the world.

Refreshing article from the Chinese Tech sector.

View the original article in Chinese here.

Translated [Google translate-English] version here