China state media blasts Google for ‘huge’ mistake

China’s state media on Wednesday belittled Google’s decision to effectively shut down its Chinese search engine, saying the Internet firm had made a huge mistake in the world’s largest online market.

The newspapers said the company would earn little sympathy from loyal users in China, as it had turned its dispute with Beijing over government web censorship and cyberattacks into a political issue.

Google on Monday stopped filtering search results in China and re-routed traffic from google.cn to an uncensored site in Hong Kong, but said it would maintain its sales and research and development teams on the mainland. “With its action to shift its search service from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong yesterday, the world’s top search engine has made a huge strategic misstep in the promising Chinese market,” the Global Times said.

The paper touted the improvement in China’s business climate and warned foreign firms that they could face “unprecedented” competition from homegrown companies, urging them to adapt to the “transitional Chinese society”. “A win-win situation is in the interests of both China and foreign businesses. Google’s ‘new approach’ does not work,” it said in a commentary.

AFP