Google's Censored Return to China

Google is going to return to China in the form of an Android app

 Google decided not to make its search engine available in China in 2010 when it knew its search results would be censored.

We applauded it for this brave move, much to the dismay of fans in the mainland. But Google did this to make a statement -- if you are searching for something on the World Wide Web, you should be able to find all the answers you need, not just what the government thinks you should see.

Fans mourned the search engine when it exited China in 2010

However, eight years later, the behemoth wants to come back -- and is willing to be censored.

According to the investigative website The Intercept, Google plans to launch a censored version of its search engine in the form of an Android app. So if you use it on the mainland, the Chinese search app will automatically identify and filter websites blocked by the Great Firewall; certain banned words and phrases will have a "no results shown" page; the app has already been demonstrated to the Chinese government; and the final version could be launched within the next six to nine months.

Back in 2010 Google was adamant about leaving China because one of the co-founders Sergey Brin was born and raised behind the iron curtain in the then Soviet Union and felt the need to take a stand against censorship. However these days he is less hands-on in the company and the leadership at Google has changed.

Sergey Brin is not as involved in Google these days

The company also specifically chose Android, as 95 percent of the 750 million internet users have mobile devices, 80 percent of which use Android. So it made sense for Google to target this massive audience through an Android app.

Nevertheless it's going to be an uphill battle for Google to get young people to use its search engine as everyone is so used to Baidu the domestic one. And how can Google differentiate itself from Baidu when its search results will be as heavily censored as the local version?

Not everyone at Google is happy with this latest development. According to the New York Times, some employees who were asked to work on the project declined and requested to be transferred elsewhere in the company. Some said the move to be censored went against Google's previous statements about its stance on censorship, and that technology should not be used to contravene human rights.

Amnesty International has said it would be a "dark day for internet freedom" and would constitute "a gross attack on freedom of information and internet freedom if Google accepted China's censorship terms.

The Android app will help Google reach millions of users

On Chinese social media, some were excited about Google's return, while others questioned the point of having a "neutered Google". "We don't need a second Baidu," said one internet user.

It's disappointing to see Google sacrifice its own ethics to satiate its desire to enter the mainland Chinese market. It only gives China even more power, so it can say, "Look, even Google is willing to bend to our demands."

Alas, the allure of China is too great for even internet giant Google...

China 1, Google 0.

Baidu's Robin Li has an Idea

Baidu's Robin Li wants to lure overseas skilled labour to China in tech firms

Someone is thinking out of the box -- now that US President Donald Trump is making some people there uneasy about living in America, why not lure them to China?

That's the idea Robin Li Yanhong, chief executive of Baidu is pitching at the Chinese People's Consultative Conference in Beijing.

"China should be more open in its immigration policy," he said at a panel. "Chinese companies have made a lot of effort to attract overseas talent to work in China. But most of the talent we attract are overseas Chinese. In the meantime, Silicon Valley has gathered top tech talent from across the globe."

He said people who don't agree with Trump's restrictive immigration policies, or who can't get into the US should come to China instead, and that the Middle Kingdom should do more to attract these skilled workers, and that means liberalizing immigration policies at home so that innovation can drive economic growth.

Hugo Barra returned to the US from China due to health issues

While the US has 13.1 million green card holders at the start of 2013, almost two-thirds of them acquired permanent residency in the previous 13 years.

This compares to China with 7,356 foreigners getting permanent residency since the mainland began giving out green cards in 2004, even though some 600,000 people from overseas work there.

Interestingly last year 1,576 foreigners were made permanent residents, a whopping increase of 163 percent over the previous year.

Tech companies like Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei have a high demand for skilled workers in the field and perhaps them being turned off by Trump would be a good opportunity to try out jobs in China.

However, one of the biggest issues is air quality, and the exit of Hugo Barra from Xiaomi back to Silicon Valley in January due to health issues was telling.

A couple walks by the Forbidden City in Beijing

On his Facebook page, Barra, who was previously at Google, said the last few years of living in a "singular environment have taken a huge toll on my life and started affecting my health".

Also in January, a Beijing-based online platform called 36kr.com released a survey that found half of the nearly 300 entrepreneurs polled had considered moving their businesses or part of their operations out of the city because of concerns about air pollution.

So how about it, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang? Robin Li has a point. Clean up the air and loosen the immigration policy and the skilled masses may come flooding in to help further stimulate the Chinese economy.

Just a thought...

Jobs Drying up in China

Chinese technology companies, like Alibaba, aren't hiring this year

With China's economy slowing, there are fears there will be lots of layoffs and university graduates not being hired.

Previously the mainland's technology companies were the main employers, but now they are hiring fewer people. The big three internet giants, Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba employ tens of thousands of people, but are now freezing recruitment.

Although the Chinese government had hoped the online industry and internet entrepreneurs could create jobs, there aren't enough to keep the economy afloat. Millions of other jobs are expected to be cut in industries with excess capacity as China goes through structural reforms.

Those in the coal industry may see massive layoffs

Cao Lei, director of Hangzhou-based China E-Commerce Research Centre, said internet companies over-hired last year.

"There were many acquisitions and mergers in the industry last year, like 58.com and ganji.com, and ctrip.com and qunar.com, which led to job cuts in some departments that overlapped," he added.

It is expected that 3 million workers will be laid off in the next few years in five industries, including coal, iron, and cement, due to excess capacity.

Professor Liu Erduo of Renmin University says fewer than half of those laid off in traditional sectors would be able to get jobs in the new sectors.

He said the unemployment rate, which is now at 5.1 percent, would probably rise 1 percentage point this year.

Then Premier Wen chose to procrastinate on China's economy

"Various social problems could result. But the situation should not be as serious as in the 1990s, because today, most of the younger generation are their family's only child and they will likely rely on their parents if they're unable to find a job," Liu said.

That's really naive of Liu to say this -- for many families, their only child is their sole breadwinner -- or at least they were counting on them to be. While many of the previous generation has scrimped and saved, much of their money was invested in their child and they are now probably disappointed they aren't getting their returns back in spades.

And with the rising cost of living in China these days, coupled with the requirement to buy a flat before getting married, the economic and societal pressures must be even tougher now.

However, these economic structural reforms could have been done back in 2008 when the global financial crisis hit.

Instead of taking the opportunity to implement reforms at the time, particularly cutting the excess fat of state-owned enterprises, and letting companies face the fate of market forces, then Premier Wen Jiabao threw US$586 billion into the Chinese economy to prop it up, which only fueled corruption to great heights until President Xi Jinping took over in 2012.

One can only speculate what would have happened if structural reforms had happened eight years ago, but procrastinating on what to do with the second-largest economy in the world was not a good idea...

China's Vision of Women's Day

Huang Leilei's original illustration to mark International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day and some websites in China decided to mark the day with some doodles.

One 23-year-old artist by the name of Huang Leilei wrote on her Weibo post that she was commissioned by a prestigious Chinese technology company to create a doodle for Women's Day.

The theme was "Be the person you'd like to be" and so she came up with an illustration featuring smiling women in various professions like police, doctor, astronaut, chef and basketball player.

Youku's mobile doodle version...

Huang worked on a team with mostly women and work was progressing well until at the last minute the bosses decided to scrap the idea completely.

So this is what appeared today -- a young woman sitting in a chair drinking tea.

While the Edinburgh-based artist and graduate of Peking University didn't explicitly say which company it was, the description matches the doodle on the video-sharing website Youku.

This mobile version says on the right: "May the world be gentle with you".

Probably not surprising was that Huang's post was shared 15,000 times in eight hours. Netizens were quick to condemn the doodle, with one saying, "The boss probably doesn't know today is International Women's Day, not international mistress day." Another commented: "Our country doesn't need creative women, it just needs pretty dolls to put in cages."

Baidu's doodle has a girl revolving in a music box

Search engine Baidu has a figurine girl revolving on top of a music box surrounded by jewellery, lipstick and a hand mirror...

We in Hong Kong are lucky that Google Hong Kong is progressive because its doodle is similar to Huang's original idea, which probably pains her even more...

Google Hong Kong's doodle for Women's Day

This just clearly illustrates how China -- Chinese men -- view women. While Mao may have said that "women hold up half the sky", he too treated them like toys to play with and discard, according to his doctor's memoir, The Private Life of Chairman Mao...

When will women achieve equality in China?