Readers, what is important here is both the limited agenda and how that happened. The Side bar is the stupid, ethonocentric, and wealth arrogant hubris that Google attempted to deal with what they identified as a problem. It all is in my opinion very funny, it is only the beginning of the lowering of the imperialist capitalist class. Admin

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc.’s opposition to censorship in China was the one topic left off the table in Davos -- at China’s request.

“China didn’t want to discuss Google,” Josef Ackermann, chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank AG and a co-chairman of this year’s World Economic Forum, said in an interview. China’s Vice Premier Li Keqiang made that clear, he said. “Google has backed off a little bit.”

Even Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn’t bring up China, a market that will account for $600 million of Google’s sales this year, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Google said this month that it had faced a “highly sophisticated” attack on its computers and that human-rights activists were targeted.

At Davos, financier George Soros, economist Joseph Stiglitz and French President Nicolas Sarkozy debated technology topics including social networking and 3-D features used in the motion picture “Avatar.” The discussion didn’t address the conflict between China and Google, even during panels on “The Rise of Asia” and “Redesigning the Global Dimensions of China’s Growth.”

By leaving China, Google, the most-used Internet search engine, would be giving up access to the world’s largest Internet market.

Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Chinese government should investigate Google’s allegations of cyber attacks.

“We cannot afford in today’s interconnected world to have too many instances where businesses are constrained, where information is not flowing freely, where companies’ accounts can be hacked into,” Clinton said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio in Paris, where she met with Sarkozy.

‘Discuss the Positives’

“China just wants people to discuss the positives -- the commercial opportunities and how China can be a force for reviving the world economy,” said Christopher McNally, a China specialist at the Honolulu-based East-West Center, a research organization established in 1960 to strengthen relations between Asia and the U.S. “Government and business leaders at Davos, by not addressing this issue that there really is a clash of values on both sides, do risk popular backlashes within their own countries.”

The reluctance of companies to talk about China illustrates the pressure on them to protect their business in the country, while the U.S. government doesn’t want to upset Chinese investors, the biggest holders of U.S. debt, said Andy Mok, president of consulting firm Red Pagoda Concepts LLC.

China held $789.6 billion in U.S. Treasuries in November, or 22 percent of debt held by foreign investors, according to Treasury Department data.

‘Huge Issue’

“The U.S. government probably has an incentive not to antagonize the Chinese right now,” said Mok, whose Seattle-based firm helps U.S. technology companies find business opportunities in China. “Corporate America and access to Chinese markets is a huge issue.”

Google, based in Mountain View, California, declined $4.35 to $529.94 yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have fallen 15 percent this year.

Adobe Systems Inc., Juniper Networks Inc. and Rackspace Hosting Inc. said after Google’s announcement that they were targeted by cyber attacks. Yahoo! Inc. was also among the companies affected by the attack on Google, a person familiar with the matter said this month.

John Davies, general manager of Intel Corp.’s World Ahead program, which works with governments to help bring wireless connectivity to disadvantaged communities, declined to discuss Google and China at Davos.

Intel, the world’s biggest chipmaker, is building its first manufacturing plant in China. The country accounted for 13 percent of Santa Clara, California-based Intel’s sales in its fiscal year 2008, according to Bloomberg data.

‘Growing Business’

“China is going to be a growing business for us,” Sehat Sutardja, CEO of Santa Clara, California-based Marvell Technology Group Ltd., said in an interview in Davos.

Sutardja, whose company supplies the main chip for Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry, said he faces none of the obstacles Google is discussing because Marvell doesn’t produce content.

China, with more than 1.3 billion people, had about 396 million Internet users last year, according to New York-based EMarketer Inc. That number will grow to 840 million, or 61 percent of the population by 2013.

“All in all, from a business perspective, China is doing well and at this point of time here I should refrain from making political comments,” Eckhard Cordes, CEO of Metro AG, Germany’s largest retailer, said in an interview. “China has not been a major subject here in Davos.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said foreign companies doing business in the country should adhere to the law.

Front-Page News

“Chinese Internet policies are sensible, rational and legitimate,” said Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the embassy. “People there enjoy sufficient access to both the Internet itself and the content.”

In remarks circulated on the front page of China’s newspapers, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said in an interview this week on ABC News’s “Good Morning America” that “Chinese efforts to censor the Internet have been very limited.”

Gates declined to comment on Google in an interview in Davos.

Google wasn’t mentioned in either of two China-oriented Davos panel discussions: One called “U.S.-China: Reshaping the Global Agenda” and another on “Redesigning the Global Dimensions of China’s Growth,” which featured Alcoa Inc. CEO Klaus Kleinfeld and Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman. The participants debated topics including what China Central Television host Rui Chenggang called a “self-righteous” Western media’s misapprehension of China. Rui and Schwarzman both declined to comment about Google after the panel.

‘Deep Conflicts’

“I don’t know where you would have interjected it on this panel, but if it had come up, I would have commented on it,” Kleinfeld said in an interview.

Anatoly Chubais, CEO of state-run Russian Nanotechnology Corp. and formerly first deputy prime minister under the late Boris Yeltsin, said businesses can’t on their own force China to be more open.

“China is only just entering into an era of deep conflicts of this nature,” Chubais said in an interview. “Its billion people will need to take very tough and very painful decisions.”

In a session on technology and society, Adam Lashinsky, Fortune Magazine’s editor-at-large, went against Vice Premier Li’s wishes and attempted to draw out the discussion of Google.

“If Google is not involved in China in the future, would Google be achieving its mission?” Lashinsky asked.

Apply Pressure

“We love what China is doing as a country and its growth,” Schmidt said. “We just don’t like the censorship. We hope to apply some negotiation or pressure to make things better for the Chinese people.”

Google had approached other companies to seek their help drawing attention to the cyber attack in December and was frustrated by their reluctance to come forward, a person familiar with the matter said this month.

Li said in an address to the Davos forum that China offers “huge opportunities” for foreign companies.

“People have their commercial interests,” Deutsche Bank’s Ackermann said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Delaney in Davos at robdelaney@bloomberg.net; Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 29, 2010 20:55 EST