The fate of Google in China is a very interesting event. Combined with the Arab Revolutions, gives food for thought about the impact of the Fourth Revolution on autocratic governments.
An article from CNN gives a detailed account of the misfortunes of Google in China. It is a bit long, but it is worth the read. In particular, because it shows how the uncompromising attitude of Google frontally collided with the suspicion of the Chinese officials. That was certainly quite a cultural shock!
So, let’s take a high level view looking at what will certainly happen in the future. China will certainly be able to develop on its own tools that will give a similar service to Google, Facebook etc. The Chinese characters help, and China is a big enough country to have everything done in their native tongue. Still, isn’t China taking a path, that on the long term might isolate it from the creativity of the Collaborative Age?
That might be the case. We already see that China being the manufacturer of the planet, had developed services much slowly than India. That is maybe the long term communist mindset (an Industrial-Age oriented mindset). India is democratic, open on the internet, developing myriads of Fourth Revolution applications using the most of long distance communication.
Who will win? I have a guess. On the long term, being isolated from the waves and currents of global creativity is not sustainable. China is large, has its own language, and might resist a bit longer than smaller countries. Still the Fourth Revolution calls for inclusion in the stream of the world.
China will need to change or will crumble. And that might be soon, so quick are the changes of the Fourth Revolution.
And what about Google? It might also need to change, as it seems. Let’s make a guess? Who will change dramatically first? China or Google?
