Hong Kong – China on Tuesday announced retaliation against the US, including tariffs on imports of products such as coal, liquefied natural gas products and crude oil, as well as an antitrust probe in Google. It also placed two other American firms in an incredible unit list that could prevent them from investing in China.
China and Google had a long and entangled relationship in the early 2000s.
Here is a look at the history of Google in China and what is the meaning of antitrust investigation for the company:
What is Google related to China?
Google launched the Chinese-Language Search Engine Google.CN in 2006. It was censored to follow Beijing’s laws, and in 2009, there was a major search engine in China with about 36% market share.
In 2010, in response to a increasing reluctance to follow a cyber attack and censorship rules, Google said that it was no longer ready to block the search results and shut down its Chinese search engine, users instead instead Was redirect on his Hong Kong site.
Beijing later blocked Google services under its great Firewall Censorship System, including its email service Gmail, as well as its chrome browser and search engines, inaccessible to users in the mainland China.
China usually blocks most western internet platforms, such as Google, as well as social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram.
Does Google still work in China?
Although Google services are not accessible in China, the company still maintains an appearance in the country, mainly focused on sales and engineering for its advertising business. It also has employees working on services including Google Cloud and Customer Solutions.
Google holds offices in major Chinese cities Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Why is China investigating Google?
For market regulation, the Chinese state administration said on Tuesday that it was investigating Google on suspicion of violating antitrust laws.
While the regulators did not give further details, the announcement was made after a few minutes after the 10% tariff imposed by US President Donald Trump.
What does this mean for Google?
As is actually being investigated for Google, there are some details on it, the immediate effect on Google operation is not clear, although its current position is unlikely to be affected by the investigation, which may take months.
Google did not comment on the investigation immediately.
Some experts believe that Google is likely to be concentrated around the Android operating system of Google for the antitrust check smartphone and is used as a bargained chip in the US-China business war.
John Gong, a professor at economics at the University of International Business and Economics, said that the investigation may be related to Google’s dominance in Android business, as almost all smartphone brands will have to pay licensing fee to Google besides brands Apple and Huawei. Use Android system on their equipment.
“Now, this time, Google is placed on the chopping board. But I think it’s still an inquiry, right? It has not yet reached any decision, “Gong said,” I think it is very perfect. ,
Huawei developed its own hormonous operating system after being placed in the US unit list – foreign individuals, companies and organizations understood a national security concern – in 2019, in 2019, which stopped it from trading with American firms including Google.
Google has been accused of violating no -confidence law in other countries including the European Union, South Korea, Russia, India and Turkey, allegedly misusing its market dominance.