Google Opens Asian Data Centers But Shuns China and India

judgecorp writes "Google has opened data centers in Singapore and Taiwan to serve the boom in Asian Internet users. But it canceled a $300 million data center project in Hong Kong to focus on the Taiwan site and the smaller one in Singapore. Officially the problem was lack of space in Hong Kong, but China's repressive attitude to the Internet (and the history of the Chinese hack on Gmail in 2010) must have contributed to the move."

best to keep away from countries that spy and hack

[dAzED1]

It's a good thing the US government hasn't done anything like that to Google, eh? Moral high ground, and all...

Re:So what's HK got to do with Chinese Attitude?

[JeffAtl]

No, Hong Kong is not a "separate autonomous state". Hong Kong takes its marching orders directly from Beijing. Hong Kong has the illusion of autonomy only as long as it does not contradict the wishes of Beijing.

Hong Kong knows to keep and low profile and not rock the boat or the mainland will eliminate the extra freedoms that they currently enjoy.

As a thought exercise, consider what would happen if HK decided to enter into a defense treaty with Taiwan. What do you think would happen?

Re:good for them

[bobwalt]

It is more like Hong Kong's much touted liberties are more illusion than reality. What freedoms Hong Kong has only exists at the whim of China's central government. Indeed, Beijing has made it clear they will not let Hong Kong go too far. China has never really understood freedom of the press that is why they made such a concerted effort to hack US newspapers. They just do not believe a country can allow a press that is not controlled by the government. They had hoped to find proof that the US government has total control of the US press, I guess they didn't find it.

Officially

[TheSpoom]

Officially the problem was lack of space in Hong Kong

...but let's just ignore that and come up with conspiracy theories.