Google she is aware of a direct threat made against her and of plans to expand her services in a country from which she was expelled, but in which she would be willing to return, subject to the conditions imposed. More specifically, last week it was learned that Google intends to return to China to relaunch its search engine, including cloud-based services, even agreeing to apply the censorship requested by the Chinese government.
Google has not officially announced its plans, but the president of Baidu, the main local competitor for the Americans, has already announced that it will destroy its competition regardless if it decides to return to China. The president of Baidu made the statement through his own WeChat account, and this despite the fact that Google did not even say at any time that they intended to return to China, follow their principles, and accept the censorship of the local government.
Google: DIRECT THREAT Against the Company
Google and Baidu compete in almost all the fields in which they are active, and if the Chinese company is now the leader on the Chinese market in many of the segments in which it is active, Google will steal its place very quickly. Google has much better services than Baidu, and is able to offer the Chinese exactly what they saw in the Americans, but do not yet have, but with some censorship limitations imposed by the local government, which would not be exactly great.
"Baidu CEO Robin Li wrote on his verified WeChat account that if "Google decides to return to China, we are very confident we can just PK and win again." By PK, he was referencing "player-kill." Yet despite Li's confidence, internet users commenting on Weibo appear to prefer Google over Baidu. Many commented on Li's post that they would gladly uninstall Baidu and start using Google if it was allowed back in China."
Google left China in 2010, and local companies have become very powerful since then, so a company like Baidu, which has 70% of the local market, will definitely feel threatened and attack. The even worse part for Baidu is that a poll published by the president on his WeChat account showed that people would prefer Google over the company he runs, and that says a lot about what the Chinese want.
