Beijing, January 26: Even if its stand against censorship leads it to close its search engine in China, Google Inc still hopes to maintain other key operations in the world’s most populous internet market.
Google is negotiating to keep its research centre in China, an advertising sales team that generates most of the company’s revenue in the country and a fledgling mobile phone business as the company navigates the delicate negotiations with the government.
Both sides are torn by conflicting objectives.
Google said it’s no longer willing to comply with the Chinese government’s demands for censored search results, yet it still wants access to the country’s engineering talent and steadily growing online advertising and mobile phone markets.
Chinese leaders are determined to control the flow of information, but realise they need rich and innovative companies such as Google to achieve their goal of establishing the country as a technology leader.
—Agencies