Digitally China Podcast: Project Dragonfly and Google’s China “Re-Entry”

Digitally China is a bi-weekly podcast from RADII hosted by Tom Xiong and Eva Xiao, and produced by Jacob Loven. On each episode, the team will tackle a different timely tech-related topic, providing key insights on all you need to know about the fast-changing nature of innovation in China. Find previous episodes of Digitally China here.

A few months ago The Intercept published a bombshell article: Google had been secretly working on a censored search engine named Project Dragonfly to satisfy the Chinese government’s censorship laws and enable a potential launch of Google in China.

This obviously caused a lot of criticism, both from Google’s own employees who pointed to the move being in conflict with the firm’s “Don’t Do Evil” slogan, and from prominent US politicians questioning the tech giant’s intentions when on the one hand declining to work on defense contracts with the US government but on the other apparently being ready to appease the Chinese authorities.

In this episode of Digitally China, we take a deeper look at the topic. Why are Google interested in China? What is their real potential in the largest Internet market in the world? And how could they actually enter China considering all the existing competition?

The confirmation of Google taking a hard look at China again after all these years actually confirms a much larger trend. US tech giants are starting to realize that they can’t be outside China anymore — not only because it represents the largest Internet population in the world with data to feed into any future world-dominating AI, but also because the power is shifting from West to East when it comes to innovation.

Listen in full here:

Related reading:

Google Launches WeChat Mini-Program as it Continues to Test China Waters

Article Jul 18, 2018

Google Invests in JD.com as the E-Commerce Site Eyes Further Global Expansion

Article Jun 18, 2018

Digitally China is a subjective but independent depiction of the tech scene in China. Audio clips used in the podcast have not been distorted nor taken out of context and are included for commentary and educational purposes and thus shall be considered “Fair Use”. Clips used are from:

Al Jazeera English “Google’s China push outweighs censorship concerns”; Bloomberg Technology “Google Wants Back in…in China”; CNBC Television “The Intercept: Google plans censored search engine in China”; SenTedCruz “Sen. Cruz Questions Google Executive on Search Engine’s Bias & Chinese Censorship”; CNBC Television “Google considering China search engine”