Eric Schmidt, the Chief Executive of Google said Google and China will resolve their differences over censorship and an alleged attack on Google’s service "soon." This was at a technology conference at Abu Dhabi. He said, “We are in active negotiations with the Chinese government.” Google has decided not to publicize the status of the negotiations, he said, but “something will happen soon.”
Yet, on the other hand a top Google executive has reaffirmed in the US that Google is prepared to leave China if Beijing says it must censor web searches or quit the country.
"Google is firm in its decision that it will stop censoring our search results for China," Google vice president and deputy general counsel Nicole Wong told a key US House of Representatives Committee. The company is mindful that it has "hundreds of employees on the ground" and understands "the seriousness or the sensitivity" of its decision but "we will stop censoring" search results in China, she said.
If Beijing’s response is to demand the firm shutter its google.cn site and close up shop in China, "we are prepared to do that," Wong told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Yet in China the view is diametrically opposite. Google must obey Chinese laws on censorship or “pay the consequences” Li Yizhong, the minister of Industry and Information Technology, has warned.
He continued that Google was running out of time if it wanted to continue doing business in China, the world’s largest internet market.
"If you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulations, you are unfriendly, you are irresponsible and you will have to pay the consequences. Whether they leave or not is up to them," Li said. "But if they leave, China’s internet market is still going to develop."
AP and other sources.
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