Google's announced intent to withdraw from China is certainly provocative news. Will it happen? I'll be surprised if it does, because the loss of face to China would be so great. But it may be that Google's strategists have come to the point where they realise that being polite and compliant only increases the demands on them. Most foreigners in China have to go through some painful experience in China before they realise this.
It recalls my experience ten years ago when I was sent by my academic employer to attend a ceremony sponsored jointly by our institution and a Chinese counterpart. The Chinese party commissar who handled the arrangements asked for my cv in advance. I translated it into Chinese, showing the Chinese name given me by my highly literate Chinese teacher 45 years ago, when I began to learn Mandarin.
I sent the translated cv in advance of my arrival. By the time I arrived, they had retyped the whole cv into their format. Most significantly, they had also substituted an officially prescribed phonetic translation of my Chinese name, rendering it immediately obvious to any reader that I am a foreigner, in place of the elegant and authentically Chinese name by which I've been known for decades.
When I objected to this invasion of my personal prerogatives and degradation of my identity, my handler told me that in China I must do things the Chinese way. I replied that for me to acknowledge any other Chinese name would be to show disrespect for my Chinese teacher. Finally, when he insisted, I said I would simply return to Melbourne, and not attend the ceremony.
In that instance, I was not acting; I meant it. And it worked. He immediately relented, and I realised that he had been disguising, through this petty bullying, his uncomfortable dependence on needing a conspicuously foreign-looking face to attend the ceremony in order to give an appearance of authenticity to the joint program. I concluded that the key in any negotiation with the Chinese is to identify what they need and exact my price for it.
So, did Google think their entering China could exert a force for China's 'opening up'? If so, I would suggest that they have deceived themselves.
Foreigners approaching China often fail to see the full depth