FT: Google, China at Impasse

Google is "99.9 percent" certain it will have to close its Chinese search engine as talks with Chinese authorities about censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent dead end, according to a report in Saturday's Financial Times.

The paper says that Google has drawn up plans to close its Chinese search engine in the event that an impasse would force the shutdown of Google.cn.

Quoting an unidentified source "close to the search company," the FT reported that Google's top management was "adamant" about ending the censorship.

On Friday Li Yizhong, China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology, sent a barely-veiled warning to Google when he told reporters that foreign companies could not flout the country's laws.

"If you don't respect Chinese laws, you are unfriendly and irresponsible, and the consequences will be on you,", he said, responding to a hypothetical question about China's reaction if Google decided to stop filtering search results on Google.cn. "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."

Google has about 35 percent of the Chinese search market. About 384 million people use the Internet in China.

It's purely happenstance but history buffs may note that all this falls around the anniverary of the date Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal which ultimately would result in the creation of the World Wide Web.