Opinion

For China, even a censored Google search engine would be better than Baidu

Bai Tongdong says even though Google would not offer the Chinese people unfettered access to information through its ‘Dragonfly’ search engine, it would still be better than the available alternatives

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Bai Tongdong is a professor of philosophy at Fudan University in China and a global professor of law at NYU’s Law School

Published: 2:00am, 15 Oct 2018Updated: 6:33am, 15 Oct 2018

Reports that Google has been working on a version of its search engine, code-named “Dragonfly”, that can meet the censorship criteria of the Chinese government provoked a huge backlash from Google employees and the American public that was aware of the development – that is, a very small part of the US population. Google was seen to be kowtowing to an authoritarian government and violating the company’s unofficial motto “don’t be evil”, a slogan that was removed from its code of conduct in May.

The irony is that the news was welcomed by ordinary Chinese, like “the delight of rain after a long drought”, to use a Chinese idiom. The news has not, of course, been officially reported, but the excitement has been palpable on social media in China.

In response, Li Yanhong, the CEO of Baidu, the company behind China’s most popular search engine, posted on his WeChat account that Google’s return would give Baidu the opportunity to “win one more time”. The comment was mercilessly ridiculed. Chinese internet users don’t seem convinced that Google’s retreat from China was due to fair but powerful competition from Baidu.

Rather, Baidu has profited greatly from Google’s retreat, dominating, if not monopolising, the search engine space in China. Partly due to this quasi-monopoly, Baidu’s search engine often shamelessly yields to profit-driven results.