When Scott Beaumont became head of Google’s China operations in 2013, he gave up management of the company’s European partnerships for what seemed a much tougher job.
The US technology group no longer offered its flagship search engine in mainland China, having pulled it three years earlier in the face of hacking attacks and political pressure for results to be censored. New president Xi Jinping was drawing up plans for a bigger, fiercer internet regulator. The Gmail service was blocked the year after Mr Beaumont arrived, when it was taken behind the “Great Firewall”, China’s apparatus of online controls.
These days China’s internet censorship is tighter than ever. But its opportunities for Google are also much greater, thanks to a boom in smartphone ownership and demand for artificial intelligence partnerships as part of the government’s policy to lead the world in high-tech industries.