American tech companies are giving up efforts to stay afloat in China amidst censorship that has made their operations difficult.
On Monday, Google announced that it has shut down its Google Translate service in mainland China due to low usage, marking the end of one of its last remaining products in the South Asian country.
CNBC reports that the dedicated mainland China website for Google Translate now redirects users to the Hong Kong version of the service – but it is not accessible from mainland China.
“We are discontinuing Google Translate in mainland China due to low usage,” Google said in a statement.
Late last year, LinkedIn, the only American-based social media company allowed in China, announced that it’s shutting down its services due to growing censorship that had severely limited users’ freedom of expression.
This is the trajectory for American tech companies not outrightly banned in China, giving equivalent Chinese companies the opportunity to thrive.
CNBC noted that, like others, Google has had a fraught relationship with the Chinese market. For instance, in 2010, the tech giant pulled its search engine from China in because of strict government censorship online. Its other services — such as Google Maps and Gmail — are also effectively blocked by the Chinese government.
Local competitors such as search engine Baidu and social media and gaming giant Tencent have capitalized on the gap to dominate the Chinese internet landscape in areas from search to translation.
Google’s attempts to penetrate the Chinese market had met a brick wall due to the country’s strict rules and free speech advocates calling on tech companies not to enable China’s censorship by playing by their muzzling rules. CNBC reports below how in addition to censorship, the US – China soured relationship is adding to the ordeal of US tech companies in China.
Google has a very limited presence in China these days. Some of its hardware including smartphones are made in China. But The New York Times reported last month that Google has shifted some production of its Pixel smartphones to Vietnam.
The company is also looking to try to get Chinese developers to make apps for its Android operating system globally that will then be available via the Google Play Store, even though that’s blocked in China.
In 2018, Google was exploring reentering China with its search engine, but ultimately scrapped that project after backlash from employees and politicians.
American businesses have been caught in the middle of continued tensions in the technology sphere between the U.S. and China. Washington continues to fret over China’s potential access to sensitive technologies in areas such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors.
In August, U.S. chipmaker Nvidia disclosed that Washington will restrict the company’s sales of specific components to China.
