Google has said it may shut down its China operations in protest against government censorship of its search results. If Google leaves China, the country will suddenly become even more dependent on its main homegrown search engine, Baidu.com. And while that is likely to benefit the Chinese company in the near term, analysts say it could bode poorly for the long-term development of the Internet in China. Baidu is hardly an upstart. The company has 300 million users and a stock valued at more than $13 billion, and it is the market leader in China, by a wide margin, with a commanding 63 percent share to Google’s 33 percent, according to iResearch, a consulting firm. “It’s a duopoly in China,” says Richard Ji, an analyst at Morgan Stanley. “There’s just Baidu and Google. And Baidu’s way ahead.” Baidu did not comment Wednesday on Google’s announcement. One reason for Baidu’s dominance is its close compliance with the nation’s tight Internet regulations and its censorship of Internet content. Baidu played along and Google did not like to, experts say. Google has previously said it would obey Chinese internet laws requiring politically and socially sensitive issues to be blocked from search results, but now says that policy will be dropped.
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