“We’re in this for the long haul,” wrote a Google executive four years ago when the company launched a self-censored version of its search engine for the China market. Now Google says it might have to pull out of the country because of alleged attacks by hackers in China on its e-mail service and a tightening of China’s restrictions on free speech on the internet. Its change of heart, as the company rightly points out, could have “far-reaching consequences”.Google’s “new approach to China”, as the company’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, called it on January 12th on the company’s official blog, will certainly infuriate China’s government. The authorities are sensitive to foreign complaints about internet controls in China. In November, during a visit by President Barack Obama, his obliquely worded criticism of Chinese online censorship was itself censored from official reports. If it does close down in China, Google would be the first big-brand foreign company to do so citing freedom of speech in many years.
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