Communications of the ACM
Google Is Definitely No "god"
Google announced at 3:00 a.m. Tuesday, March 23rd (Beijing Time) its decision to move most of its China-based search functions from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong, and thus opened a new phase in a two-month-long fracas, or the "Google Showdown", which had been launched on January 12 and threatened to withdraw from China. So, Google has something for its settlement explanation at last.
Strictly speaking, Google has not "pulled out of China", as it has first of all transformed the domain name to Hong Kong, which is one of China's special administrative regions. Secondly, Google is very likely to retain part of its business on the Chinese mainland. Upon opening its search services Tuesday, one could see the phrase on screen to his or her consternation "Welcome You to Google Search in China's New Home". So, the wording "Quit China" is merely a "camouflage".
U.S. media have done a lot of reportages and the "Washington Post" was the most exaggerating to report that for Chinese people, "Loss of Google Would Means Nothing but Darkness". It seems as if the Google represents the spirit God of Chinese people. In the meanwhile, however, India's Zee News website was quite earnest in describing Google merely as a "search engine" for the Chinese people. Moreover, according to a survey released by China's World Wide Web network, 84 percent of people in China deem that Google's pullout "does not matter", and many Chinese feel even very repugnant with Google's menacing gesture.
From People's Daily
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