Google, China and the art of war

Google has bowed out gracefully and saved China's face. Its courage teaches us a lot
Beijing Google China headquarters
Flowers left by Chinese Google users on its sign outside the Google China headquarters in January. Photograph: Vincent Thian/AP

Let me share a story first retweeted by many Twitter users in China recently. There are four guys eating excrement together, named after the four big Chinese portals: Netease, QQ, Baidu and After some time, declared it too smelly and left. Netease frowned, QQ didn't respond, while Baidu took Google's seat and plate and ate for two.

It's a joke, but it reflects the situation in China. A renowned writer in Taiwan, Bo Yang, once said that Chinese people have been living in a huge smelly pickle jar together for about 5,000 years, and nobody wants to change that even though they all know it's unpleasant. Google jumped into this jar four years ago but forgot to bring their principles with them. Unfortunately, they didn't bring any new rules to the game and just joined in.

Some time later, they found the pickle jar even less pleasant than they had expected. The Google motto "Don't be evil" became "Don't be too evil". Fortunately, they woke up and started to correct it. After a hopeless wandering in China, they finally took the decision to stay away from the big jar and clean themselves up. Chinese netizens on Twitter and other social media tools applauded.

Google has decided to move the search engine from mainland China to Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Why do this? Because what Google learnt from China is the art of war. They bowed out gracefully and saved China's face, as well as reducing the Chinese propaganda machine's ability to attack them in the longer run. They did not pull out of the Chinese market completely. And Hong Kong is part of China after all. Google acted like gentlemen in their news statement: they didn't blame the Chinese authorities. Instead Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, appeased the Chinese government successfully.

How will the jar respond? I see a lot of propaganda machines revving up over the past two days to blame Google, and expect more to weigh in during the coming week. Then what? There will be no games because the rival has left the battleground. Compared to Google, the Chinese authorities have lost the initiative – and the war in the long run.

Google is brave to have reflected and changed. In the end, they didn't become the preserved pickle in the Chinese market. They turned around and decided to stay away from the smelly jar without irritating the government too much. They will not have to argue the problem any more because they are now out of the jar and hold a powerful position: they can do everything they want, totally freely.

You may ask why there are more and more Twitter users in China who focus on Google. The reason is because is not in the jar after China's censors pushed them out of the Great Firewall. But don't worry: Chinese netizens have millions of ways to catch up with them by scaling that wall. Google's courage teaches us a lot, and history will remember it.