Google versus China

Google is considering leaving the Chinese market siting the ongoing censoring by the government of online content and search results, recent hacking of gmail accounts of human rights activists and a cyber attack in which Google source code was stolen.  Because they have in in China for the last four years, one can conclude that it's really not the censoring that has instigated this move, and even the hacking of gmail accounts is suspect.

What one has to conclude due to the timing of this event is that Google is afraid of the Chinese government stealing their source code.  Code for a software company is their bread and butter, it's the commodity of their business.  And if that is stolen and duplicated, their competitive advantage goes away.  Google currently does not have a large market share in the Chinese market so they won't be losing out on much profits in the short term.  Of course, they wanted a foothold into the country as it's a rapidly rising economic super power.  You see more about this on CNN - Google and China.