This post originally appeared on Sinocism.com, my blog about more general China topics. China’s efforts to build its “soft power” have been in the news over the last few months. So far none of the coverage of the media strategy for soft power has discussed what may be the fatal flaw in the government’s strategy-the [...]
Kaiser Kuo has launched Sinica, a new podcast series focused on China. The first installment discusses Google in China and features Kaiser, Jeremy Goldkorn from Danwei.org, and yours truly. You can listen to the podcast here. Popup Chinese provided the recording, editing and hosting of the podcast. If you are learning Chinese and have not [...]
The Financial Times reported Saturday that Google is “99.9 percent certain” that it will shut its China search engine at Google.cn. It has been eight weeks since Google said it would no longer censor search in China. The Chinese government has handled this much better than expected given, from their perspective, Google’s very public provocation. [...]
6+ weeks on and the “negotiations” are just getting started. Per this Wall Street Journal article-Google to Resume Talks With China-Google’s lead negotiator is Ross LaJeunesse, former deputy chief of staff to California Governor Arnold Schwarzengger. It could be a stroke of genius for Google. The Terminator is very popular in China. A better headline [...]
Today’s New York Times has a long and interesting piece by Markoff and others on US preparedness for cyberwar–In Digital Combat, U.S. Finds No Easy Deterrent. As usual anything by Markoff is a good read. I want to focus on several points in the article relating to Google ($GOOG) and China. I believe the points [...]
Secrectary of State Hillary Clinton is delivering a speech in which, according to the Wall Street Journal, she will announce that “the U.S. plans to make unrestricted access to the Internet a top foreign-policy priority.” I think it is wonderful that the U.S. will push Internet freedom globally. But the timing could probably not be [...]
In a post last week on Netease ($NTES) I quoted Chinese press reports saying that on January 17 Chinese government regulators would announce penalties for Netease and its “unapproved” launch of World of Warcraft. That did not happen. The GAPP’s annual online game conference just concluded, and not only was there no news of a [...]
Each country pavilion at the World Expo should show off what is great about that country. What better message could the USA send to the world than to have the three standard bearers of 21st century American innovation, creativity and opportunity–Google, Facebook and Twitter–as prime sponsors of America’s presence in Shanghai? The money to buy [...]
The media has paid a lot of attention to the plight of Google employees. Google’s sudden move was a shock to them, but they will be fine. Google will be more than generous in paying severance and they will quickly land on their feet, either at new jobs (Tencent, why not just hire the entire [...]
Right now I don’t have much more to add to the discussion of Google’s decision to no longer play by the PRC’s rules, and all the implications that decision may have for many US firms in China. When the dust settles I will try to write something intelligent. In the meantime, without intending to be [...]
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