Google welcomed back to China by state media in now-deleted post

Google’s search engine in Chinese.
REUTERS/Stringer

• Chinese state media ran a comment piece on Monday
  welcoming Google back to China — as long as it plays by Chinese
  rules.
• But all versions of the People’s Daily post were
  abruptly deleted from the internet as of Tuesday.
• The post followed reports that Google was planning to
  relaunch a search service in mainland China, complete with
  government censorship.
• The writer of the piece also said that Google had
  missed out on “golden chances” to gain a foothold in mainland
  China when it pulled its search services out of the country in
  2010.

Chinese state media published, and later deleted, a comment piece
saying that Google was welcome to return to China as long as it
complied with Chinese rules.

The post, published on People’s Daily newspaper on Monday,
responded to a recent report by The Intercept that Google, which
pulled out of mainland China in 2010, was planning
to relaunch a search service in mainland China, complete with
government censorship.

The original People’s Daily post is no longer available but
a cached version
can be found here. Why and when exactly it was taken down is
not clear.

The text of the commentary was also posted on Twitter and
Facebook, but those were also deleted as of Tuesday morning,
as
pointed out by Li Yuan, The New York Times’ Asia tech
columnist.

China’s
internet has been prone to numerous censor ships and
bans.
REUTERS/Fred
Dufour/Pool

The author, identified as Yu Ning, said: “Google is welcome to
return to the mainland, but it’s a prerequisite that it must
comply with the requirements of the law.”

It continued: “Google failed to understand the Chinese market
eight years ago. Whether and when it can return hinges on its own
attitude. Only by respecting local laws and regulations and
following local customs can multinational companies win local
consumers and the market.”

Yu added that by pulling out of China in 2010, Google
had missed out on “golden chances” to gain a footing in
China’s then-nascent internet market.

Yu wrote: “The decision to exit the Chinese market was a huge
blunder, which made the company miss golden chances in the
mainland’s internet development,” before noting that the number
of Chinese on the internet had massively increased since then.

Google’s old campus in China.
Reuters

Google pulled its search service out of China in 2010 because it
refused to censor its search results. It moved its Chinese
operations to Hong Kong. Google search is mostly inaccessible due
to China’s “Great Firewall,” which blocks many foreign internet
services.

Chinese tech companies routinely ban posts and keywords used to
criticize or undermine the Chinese state. In an extreme example,
popular microblogging and chat platforms Weibo and
WeChat briefly
censored the letter N earlier this year after it was used
to criticize a plan that paved the way for Xi Jinping to
rule the country indefinitely.

Yu’s commentary also added that China’s strict governance of its
internet was “safe for society.” The Chinese government
often uses
similar phrases to justify its crackdown on media content.