Technology and Innovation in an Era of U.S.-China Strategic Competition

Paul Haenle & Elsa Kania from Carnegie China
China has taken significant steps to implement national strategies and encourage investment in order to surpass the U.S. in high tech fields like artificial intelligence. In this podcast, Paul Haenle sat down with Elsa Kania, adjunct fellow at the...

Whistleblower Reveals Google’s Plans for Censored Search in China

James Vincent
Verge
According to internal documents provided to The Intercept by a whistleblower, Google has been developing a censored version of its search engine under the codename “Dragonfly” since the beginning of 2017. The search engine is being built as an...

Ex-Google Executive Opens a School for AI, with China's Help

Tom Simonite
Wired
Onetime head of Google's operations in China launches a new project to train Chinese AI talents.

US-China Biotech Startup XtalPi Lands $15m from Google, Tencent and Sequoia

Jon Russell
TechCrunch
Google continues to increase its presence in China after it joined Sequoia China and Tencent in a $15 million investment for XtalPi, a U.S.-China biotech firm that uses artificial intelligence and computing to accelerate the development of new drugs.

Google Inks a Patent Deal with Tencent as It Explores Ways to Expand in China

Fortune
Alphabet‘s (GOOG, +0.31%) Google has agreed to a patent licensing deal with Tencent Holdings (TCTZF, +0.86%) as it looks for ways to expand in China where many of its products, such as app store, search engine and email service, are blocked by...

Google Says ‘No Changes’ to Mapping Platform in China after Report

Reuters
CNBC
Google denied a media report that claimed the tech giant was re-launching its mapping functions in China, where many of its services are blocked.

Google Plans Big AI Push in China

Fortune
Google is expanding its artificial intelligence, or AI research to China.

Google to Open Beijing AI Center in Latest Expansion in China

Shelly Banjo and David Ramli
Bloomberg
Google is deepening its push into China as it seeks an edge in one of technology’s most competitive fields: artificial intelligence.

Google Continues to Hire in China Even as Search Remains Blocked

David Ramli
Bloomberg
Google’s search service may be banned in China but parent Alphabet Inc. is hunting for workers in a further sign it has ambitions in the world’s biggest internet market.

Sinica Podcast

06.07.17

Kai-Fu Lee on Artificial Intelligence in China

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
Kai-Fu Lee is one of the most prominent figures in Chinese technology. He founded China’s noted early-stage venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures after launching and heading up Google’s China operations during their years of growth from 2005 to...

Google Is Already Late to China’s AI Revolution

Wired
“Some of the major Chinese companies are some of the most sophisticated deep learning and data companies in the world.”

Books

05.02.17

China’s Mobile Economy

Winston Ma
China’s Mobile Economy: Opportunities in the Largest and Fastest Information Consumption Boom is a cutting-edge text that spotlights the digital transformation in China. Organized into three major areas of the digital economy within China, this ground-breaking book explores the surge in e-commerce of consumer goods, the way in which multi-screen and mobile Internet use has increased in popularity, and the cultural emphasis on the mobile Internet as a source of lifestyle- and entertainment-based content. Targeted at the global business community, this lucid and engaging text guides business leaders, investors, investment banking professionals, corporate advisors, and consultants in grasping the challenges and opportunities created by China’s emerging mobile economy, and its debut on the global stage.The year of 2014-15 marks the most important inflection point in the history of the Internet in China. Almost overnight, the world’s largest digitally-connected middle class went both mobile and multi-screen (smart phone, tablets, laptops, and more), with huge implications for how consumers behave and what companies need to do to successfully compete. As next-generation mobile devices and services take off, China’s strength in this arena will transform it from a global “trend follower” to a “trend setter.”Understand what the digital transformation in China is, and impact on global capital markets, foreign investors, consumer companies, and the global economy as a whole.Explore the e-commerce consumption boom in the context of the Chinese market.Understand the implications of the multi-screen age and mobile Internet for China’s consumersSee how mobile Internet use, its focus on lifestyle and entertainment is aligned with today’s Chinese culture.Learn about the mobile entertainment habits of China’s millennial generation and the corresponding new advertisement approaches.The development of China’s mobile economy is one of the most important trends that will reshape the future of business, technology, and society both in China and the world. China's Mobile Economy introduces you to the digital transformation in China, and explains how this transformation has the potential to transform both China and the global consumer landscape. —John Wiley & Sons, Inc.{chop}

Is Google Another Step Closer to Being Unblocked in China?

Nectar Gan
CNBC
Google is still in talks with Beijing over its plans to return to the mainland Chinese market

How Chinese Internet Giant Baidu Uses AI and Machine Learning

Bernard Marr
Forbes
Baidu is currently considered to be pack leader amongst the Chinese internet giants as they race to develop and deploy machine and deep learning technology.

Google Play and iOS Apps Demand Surges in India and China

Leo Kelion
BBC
The two leading app stores both experienced a tilt towards Asia in 2016, according to an annual study.

Beijing: Facebook & Google Can Come Back to China as long as They “Respect China’s Laws”

Josh Horwitz and Echo Huang Yinyin
Quartz
Both companies still have business-facing services in China, but consumer-facing services have been blocked for years.

Conversation

04.12.16

Should Internet Censorship Be Considered a Trade Issue?

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Susan Shirk & more
A new report from the Office of the United States Trade Representative lists, for the first time, Chinese Internet censorship as a trade barrier. The possible implications are complex: it could strengthen the hand of U.S. businesses, but also stands...

Excitement in China as Google, Instagram Jump Great Firewall—for Just Two Hours

Simon Denyer and Xu Yangjingjing
Washington Post
Access may have become possible because Google had introduced a series of new IP servers.

Missing From The U.S.-China Tech Summit Class Photo: Uber, Google, And Women

Josh Horwitz
Quartz
Business leaders from some of the biggest global names in technology gathered in Seattle for a meeting with Xi Jinping.

Google Alters Name of Disputed South China Sea Reef

Katie Hunt
CNN
Google says it has altered its map of a disputed reef in the South China Sea, removing its Chinese name in favor of what it says is its internationally recognized moniker.

China Ban Hits Google’s Search Ad Share; Baidu Gains

Kerry Flynn
International Business Times
Google’s share of 2015’s $81.59 billion search ad market at 54.5%, down from 54.7% in 2014 and 55.2% in 2013.

Google Looks to Get Back Into China

Rolfe Winkler, Alistair Barr, and Wayne...
Wall Street Journal
Google Inc. is considering bringing a version of its Play mobile-app store to China, a tentative but important step back into a country that Google mostly exited in 2010.

China Clamps Down on Web, Pinching Companies Like Google

Keith Bradsher and Paul Mozur
New York Times
China's government has draped a darker shroud over Internet communications in recent weeks, a situation that has made it more difficult for Google and its customers to do business.

China Escalating Attack on Google

Dan Levin
New York Times
The authorities in China have made Google’s services largely inaccessible in recent days, a move most likely related to the government’s broad efforts to stifle discussion of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations.

Media

02.21.14

How the Internet and Social Media Are Transforming China

Shazeda Ahmed
“The Internet has radically transformed China,” said Emily Parker, author of the book Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices from the Internet Underground, in a public discussion at Asia Society in New York on February 19.Talking about the Internet’...

Former Google China Chief Faces Online Attacks

Josh Chin
WSJ: China Real Time Report
Major Chinese Internet portals have republished an essay from an official media website that implies that Kai-fu Lee lied about being diagnosed with cancer, in what some of his supporters are calling a coordinated ad hominem effort...

Google’s Greater China President Steps Down

Paul Carsten
Reuters
Google Inc. said on Monday that its vice-president and Greater China president, Liu Yun, has stepped down to be replaced by Scott Beaumont, who currently runs the company’s partnerships business in Europe.&...

Learning From China, But What?

Yu Hua
New York Times
Yu Hua on how the new Schwarzmen scholarship ought to look to Apple’s and Google’s experience in China as instructive examples of how to (and how not to) do business in China.

Exclusive: Eric Schmidt Unloads on China in New Book

Wall Street Journal
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is brutally clear in his new book, “The New Digital Age”: China is the most dangerous superpower on Earth.

Media

01.16.13

Their Horizons Widening, China’s Web Users Look Abroad — And Want More

Last week, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt urged North Korean leaders to embrace the Internet. Only a small proportion of that country’s 24 million people can access the World Wide Web, and the majority of the 1.5 million mobile phones there...

Google Concedes Defeat in Chinese Censorship Battle

Josh Halliday
Guardian
U.S. company quietly drops warning message that Chinese users saw when searching for politically sensitive phrases

You've Got State-Sponsored Mail

Evan Osnos
New Yorker
Living in Beijing, writing about politically sensitive things now and then, you get used to the idea that somebody, somewhere, might be watching. But it is usually an abstract threat. I opened my Gmail account a couple of mornings ago and found this...

Google Confronts the Great Firewall

Rebecca Mackinnon
Foreign Policy
For centuries, the Yangtze River -- the longest in Asia -- has played an important role in China's history, culture, and economy. The Yangtze is as quintessentially Chinese as the Nile is Egyptian or the Rhine is German. Many businesses use its...

Sinica Podcast

05.20.11

Inscrutable China

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
It may be because we’ve yet to finish Henry Kissinger’s latest book on the subject, but we’ll admit to having found life in China a bit more inscrutable than normal these past few weeks, and all evidence suggests we’re not alone. Seen through the...

Sinica Podcast

04.01.11

Scandal in Baidu and Chongqing

Kaiser Kuo, Gady Epstein & more from Sinica Podcast
A year after our first show memorialized Google’s retreat from the China market, our first anniversary sees Sinica host Kaiser Kuo and his employer on the defensive as Gady Epstein and Bill Bishop grill Kaiser over recent allegations of copyright...

Sinica Podcast

03.25.11

Where Did the Internet/Salt Go?

Kaiser Kuo, Gady Epstein & more from Sinica Podcast
In less time than it took Chinese netizens to strip their supermarkets of common table salt, China ended its live-and-let-live policy with regards to the most commonly used tools for evading the country’s Internet restrictions. Recent weeks have...

Sinica Podcast

12.10.10

The Wikileaks Revelations, Part III

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
As Interpol deepens its investigation into Mr. Assange’s use of birth control and financial service companies feel the wrath of script-kiddies worldwide, our own crew of Internet vigilantes sifts through the remains of the Wikileaks data-dump in...

Sinica Podcast

04.02.10

Google China and the Pullout

Kaiser Kuo & Jeremy Goldkorn from Sinica Podcast
What exactly happened earlier this week with Google’s inaccessibility? Does Yasheng Huang have the right take on their pull-out of China, or is Tania Branigan from The Guardian more on the money? What are the consequences for Google’s future in Asia...