According to the LA Times, Google Inc. broke a long silence in its clash with China on March 10 as its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said that the Internet search giant was talking to Chinese officials and that he expected “something will happen soon.” Schmidt’s statement, made during a media summit in Abu Dhabi, marked the first time Google acknowledged talking to the Chinese government since it unleashed a global firestorm in January by revealing it had been the victim of major cyber attacks originating from China. At that time, Google vowed to remove censorship filters from the Chinese version of its search engine, even if it meant leaving the country. But since then, Google’s search results in China have remained censored, and there is little indication that the talks have progressed. Google had not said anything about the negotiations leaving observers to wonder whether the company had misjudged the ease with which it could reach a deal with China.
