Google Quits China, Who Can Understand the Deep Sorrow?

About six years ago, the world’s most advanced internet search engine, “Google,” came to China. Afterward, this company, which was once called “gougou” and “gugou” gave itself the very literary name of “guge.” After six years, today the company might be leaving the Chinese netizens.

According to reports, at 3 pm U.S. local time on the 12th of January, Google’s official blog said that it is considering closing “Google China.” When the information was out, it was as if a tsunami started on the internet. Some people call the internet, which consists of bits, “the Sea of Bits,” and Google, the most innovative search engine available, makes it easy for us to surf. If Google quits China, it is hard to estimate the magnitude of the loss to the netizens. And in the internet age, information is productivity. Academic research and access to business information will suffer a greater loss.

Some people might say that we still have other search engines to find the information we want. But unfortunately, the “price ranking competition” of years ago is still memorable. As long as money is spent, it is possible that a cheater company can rank on top. Without other companies’ information balance, it’s hard to predict how much we will be misled by the information.

Frankly, I have never imagined that this moment would happen. When Google first entered China’s market, although they accepted some threshold conditions, at least it provided this country, which is walking along the road to marketization, more choices. And the room left by this choice is just the essence of marketization. The improvement of our capability to access information is what this ancient country needs the most.

On the other hand, we should ask why a company that has almost become a pronoun for the internet must say goodbye to the largest emerging market. Business is an activity without borders. It brings rich goods and spiritual goods to us everywhere in the world. When we import more and more foreign movies and envy their advanced technology and bright imagination, have we thought about this, the brilliance and the vitality of being open?

If Google really says goodbye to us, the deep sorrow we have will accompany our days without them and we will have to watch the information that we could have accessed as apart from us from now on.

Thirty years ago we figured out the world’s general trends and our situation; we began the process of reform and opening to the outside world. Thus, we saved a country that was regarded by Xiaoping Deng as “nearly on the edge of collapse.” But at a key point in our great Renaissance, we cannot even save the most hopeful company here to develop its business and propagate a spirit and culture that could take us to the new Internet Age. The sorrow is deep in our bones.

Therefore, if this is really irretrievable, personally I hope this is just a short goodbye until a reunion. I hope when I see that page that allows us to traverse the Sea of Bits, we could say without regret that this time we will catch up to the changes of the age.

Goodbye, Google.