Google Vs Baidu Part II

Earlier this month, Google relocated its Chinese business to Hong Kong. An error this big by the U.S. giant was unexpected. This decision upset the Mainland; China is now implementing the consequences on Google.com.hk
In the eyes of the government, Chinese are very nationalistic and proud citizens. It has been obvious that Baidu is by far more appreciated than Google for two main reasons. First it is Chinese, and secondly, it is more practical.
As said in many articles regarding Google’s removal; Google will be the biggest looser, giving way to Baidu with 389m exclusive local internet users.
Google is also loosing human resources to Baidu. Wang Jing, Baidu’s new Vice-President in charge of engineering was a former Google engineering director. This switch is the first between Google and Baidu high level employees.

Google seem to have adopted a laissez-faire mood. It is hard to believe that such a world giant is loosing towards China. This can mean two things: Google is preparing a counter-attack which is still far away, or China has grown tremendously in power and is now capable of playing with its own rules. The more likely option is the second one, which made of Google an example for the rest of foreign companies.

Conflict with the Google Epidemic

One strategy to resolve a conflict is adaptation. Zhang Yu, two thousand years ago said: “Adaptation means not clinging to fixed methods, but changing appropriately according to events, acting as it suitable”.
China and Google seem to have it all wrong. The Middle Kingdom is fighting to protect its society from American values imposed by Google. The giant search engine is in a battle to shield its integrity: freedom of information.
Google threatened to pull out of the world’s largest Internet market with an estimated 384 million users, if China was incapable to adapt. The answer was from Minister Chen Deming: “You’re not going to get 1.3 billion Chinese to change by insulting them” followed by “In the end; America is the one that needs to adjust”.
The West decided to close down Google.com.cn by transferring all data onto Google.com.hk, managed in Hong Kong. This short term solution hardly resolves the conflict as China can block Google.hk at any given time. America is simply targeting the symptom of the conflict rather than the cause.