Google Could Already Be Back in China

Late last year Google quietly registered a company in Shanghai’s Free-Trade Zone, apparently in preparation for ramping up its business operations in China.
Google Could Already Be Back in China
A women polishes a dais before the Google global Chinese name launch in Beijing on April 12, 2006. Guang Niu/Getty Images
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Late last year, Google quietly registered a company in Shanghai’s Free-Trade Zone, apparently in preparation for ramping up its business operations in China.

The company—Pengji Information Technology (Shanghai) Ltd.—was registered on Dec. 25, 2014.  Google Ireland Holdings is listed as Pengji Information Technology’s sole shareholder, and William Anthony Farris as the company’s legal representative.

Farris, registered with the State Bar of California, is a longtime Google employee in China. His LinkedIn account, which previously identified him as a Google China employee since June 2007, and “Managing Counsel, Greater China, Google,” is now no longer online. His Google+ account lists him as a “Lawyer for an Internet Company in Beijing.”

Farris also runs the Fei Chang Dao blog, which focuses on documenting Internet censorship in China.

Google Ireland Holdings is a subsidiary of Google and has earned a reputation as the company’s tax haven.

Neither Farris nor Google immediately responded to email inquiries.

Official registration documents for Google's new corporation in Shanghai, Pengji Information Technology. (Screenshot via China's Administration of Industry and Commerce)
Official registration documents for Google's new corporation in Shanghai, Pengji Information Technology. Screenshot via China's Administration of Industry and Commerce
Juliet Song
Juliet Song
Author
Juliet Song is an international correspondent exclusively covering China news for NTD. She primarily contributes to NTD's "China in Focus," covering U.S.-China relations, the Chinese regime's human rights abuses, and domestic unrest inside China.
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