Google 'backing out’ of China partnerships, US senator says

Google’s chief executive officer told US Senator Mark Warner that the company has ended some partnerships in China, the lawmaker said on Tuesday on Bloomberg Television.

The search giant’s ties to China were in the spotlight this week after technology investor Peter Thiel suggested on Sunday that the US government probe Google’s "seemingly treasonous" work. President Donald Trump said he wanted the US attorney general to look into the claims. 

• Subscribe to Fin24’s newsletter here   

Google pulled its search engine from mainland China in 2010. But the company began developing a separate prototype Chinese search service as early as 2016. Reports of the project, called Dragonfly, surfaced shortly after Google nixed a US military contract, drawing criticism from the Pentagon and US politicians from both parties.

Earlier this year, Google said it had moved staff off of Dragonfly, and on Tuesday Karan Bhatia, Google’s policy chief said the project was "terminated". 

Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, didn’t specify what projects he discussed with Google CEO Sundar Pichai. A spokesperson for the senator said they spoke about a "range of partnerships".

• READ: Google’s secret China project sparks anger among workers

"I do think there’s some explaining that Google needs to make," Warner said in an interview with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Technology. "I’ve met with the Google CEO. He said they are backing out of some of those partnerships, and they’re willing to work with the US government."

A Google spokesperson declined to comment on Warner’s interview.

In January 2018, Google parent Alphabet signed a deal with Chinese tech giant Tencent to cross-licence technology and intellectual property. Google was also in talks with Tencent and several other Chinese firms about bringing its cloud services to China, Bloomberg News has reported. Google has a research partnership with Beijing’s Tsinghua University.

• READ: Trump says he wants review of Google's ties to China

In a speech on Sunday, Thiel, a Facebook board member, raised the question of whether Google’s management was “infiltrated” by foreign intelligence agencies. On Monday, the company said it has never worked with the Chinese military.

"I think that Mr Thiel and Mr Trump’s statements are a little over the top," Warner said.