Playing the Wall Game in China

His words come after Google and 30 other western companies were targeted by government-sponsored hackers who tried to obtain program codes and access the emails of political activists. Eric Schmidt, the chairman and chief executive of Google, had insisted that the company should set up inside the country in order to get the maximum benefit and to open up the regime there, and accept the compromise of self-censorship or government blocking – which it did in 2006.

Sergey Brin, its Russian-born co-founder, disliked the compromise, according to a report last week in the Wall Street Journal. After the latest series of attacks, Brin has clearly prevailed.

Finger-pointing

Some have suggested that Google wasn't making enough money in China – it trailed far behind Baidu, the domestic leader – and that its post about censorship and hacking was a cover for an entirely business-based withdrawal. But Nick Carr, whose book The Big Switch details how our lives are moving online, says that it is key for Google's long-term strategy that people trust the net completely, and that anything which undermines that endangers Google, long term. Hence its finger-pointing at China for the hacking: the Chinese market is less valuable to Google than the rest of the world market. The likely consequence is that Google will be kicked out for failing to censor its content.

Yet some echo Yam's view, and are confident that China is not a quagmire for western media companies. Dan Serfaty, the chief executive and founder of Viadeo – which owns what it claims is China's largest social network, Tianji.com (which has about 2 million users) – says: "The future for digital media in China is still bright. It's a huge economy with a huge population and increasing global influence. Will Google stay? Who knows, but it won't really affect the country's online development."