Today, Google shut down it’s China web site -google.cn.

In a bold move Google is shutting it’s search and redirecting all traffic to Hong Kong at Google.com.hk. This is after months of threatening to bolt from China because of the hacking incident to Google and other US corporations.  SiliconAngle’s Tom Foremski predicted this last week – nice job Tom.

Google announced today that it was not only closing down search in China (and redirecting to Hong Kong) but it is offering uncensored content.

Here is the complete statement from Google’s David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

On January 12, we announced on this blog that Google and more than twenty other U.S. companies had been the victims of a sophisticated cyber attack originating from China, and that during our investigation into these attacks we had uncovered evidence to suggest that the Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists connected with China were being routinely accessed by third parties, most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on their computers. We also made clear that these attacks and the surveillance they uncovered—combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free speech on the web in China including the persistent blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger—had led us to conclude that we could no longer continue censoring our results on Google.cn.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.

In terms of Google’s wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk. Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.

My Angle
Google is making a great move here – in fact very historic.  However they are still at risk of being shut down. All this China talk is very interesting and it really boils down to two factions within China – the old and the new. All the young kids are already hooked up to the net and can use proxy servers to bypass any control from the government. The move by Google is brilliant in that it allows them to set up in Hong Kong and deploy a kind of “search honey-pot” – uncensored search that all could easily get access to. Also, by actively reporting on what has been censored Google in effect becomes a watchdog on China.

Will China cave under public pressure? Google is certainly doing the right thing in setting up camp outside the “proverbial jurisdiction” and keeping an eye on the activities of the China users.

One other angle is China’s competitiveness and relationship to the Internet.  If China becomes a “rogue virutal state” then this will hurt their competitive position in terms of innovation.  It could potentially harm the collaboration angle between them and the rest of the world.

My prediction is that the public and rest of the world will create a backlash against China.  This backlash will “cold packet war” against China if they continue to show censorship behavior and/or shut down Google.