China: End in sight for Google's Chinese portal as tensions escalate

Date: 15 Mar 2010

Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its China–based search engine service and is reportedly certain to follow them through, as negotiations with the Chinese government have reached an impasse.

The Chinese government has said that it will not compromise on its approach to internet censorship in order to accommodate the company. It has also warned Google's partners, who currently carry its search services on their own websites, that they will be expected to obey the law separately and in their own right.

That suggests that, were Google to end censorship filtering on google.cn then the sites that currently link to it would be held to be breaking the law as much as Google itself.

Li Yizhong, Chinese minister for industry and information technology, said that: "if Google takes steps that violate Chinese laws, that would be unfriendly, irresponsible, and they would have to bear the consequences".

Google is hoping to retain a presence in China based around its other operations. This may prove difficult in the face of active government hostility.

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