Due to market competition and a complicated political situation, Google has no more business in China and pulls out another service: Google Translate.
Google, the most used search engine in the World and one of the most important tech companies on the planet, never had a good relationship with China. In the last decade, the communist government in China has cracked down on American tech companies, as relations between the two sides of the Pacific worsened.
Now, China has its own “Google” as well as its own “Facebook”, respectively Baidu and Tencent. Both of them are heavily censored and controlled by Beijing, and some hot topics for the regime like “Tiananmen Square” or “Taiwan” are completely banned from the site.
Now, Google has pulled out one of their last tools from mainland China: Google Translate. So far Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has refused any comments. The news was discovered by TechCrunch and confirmed by major outlets like The Wall Street Journal. Apparently visitors are redirected to the Hong Kong domain, which is not accessible on mainland China.
This move was likely a result of low usage within China of Google Translate, as the service is substituted by much more common Chinese equivalents. The incidence of this decision with the upcoming National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party has however raised some eyebrows.
Why is Google pulling out of China
The congress, which is to be held on October 16th, will probably confirm Xi Jinping again as the Chairman of the Communist Party, effectively making him the most important Chinese ruler since Mao Zedong. It was under his rule that Google started to phase out their operations from China.
Xi Jinping is a notorious strict leader, who has understood perfectly the new technological capabilities of this era. During his chairmanship, China became the second largest economy in the World and started to challenge the supremacy of the United States.
This meant a complete cut of ties between the two nations. Everything would be done in a “Chinese” way, especially technology. Throughout the last decade many technological companies started coming out of China, including the renowned sites of Alibaba and TikTok. Not to mention new Chinese brands like Huawei, Xiaomi and other phone companies.
As we said, however, the rule of Xi Jinping left no space for opposition: the Communist Party slowly cut down on controversial topics like Taiwan, Tiananmen Square and even criticism of the central government.
The ever so strict censorship and the decrease in usage by Chinese individuals meant that Google had no more profitable business in China. Despite their several attempts, it is unlikely that the Silicon Valley giant will come back to Beijing, as the disband of Google Translate clearly shows.
