BEIJING — Google’s best-known products have been blocked by the authorities in mainland China for years. If the American internet giant wants that to change someday, then half a billion dollars’ worth of good will couldn’t hurt.
北京——谷歌(Google)最有名的产品多年来一直被中国大陆当局封锁。如果美国这家互联网巨头希望有朝一日改变这种状况的话，作出价值5亿美元的友好表示不会有坏处。
The Silicon Valley company will invest $550 million in the Chinese online retailer JD.com, the two companies said on Monday. In return, JD.com will join the Google Shopping advertising platform, and will work with Google on other e-commerce projects in Europe, Southeast Asia and the United States.这家硅谷公司将向中国网络零售商京东(JD.com)投资5.5亿美元（约合35亿元人民币），这两家公司周一表示。作为回报，京东将加入谷歌购物广告平台，并将在欧洲、东南亚和美国的其他电子商务项目上与谷歌合作。The companies did not provide details of the projects. According to a JD.com spokesman, the deal will give Google less than 1 percent of the Chinese retailer’s shares, which trade on the Nasdaq.这两家公司没有提供这些项目的细节。京东发言人表示，谷歌的投资将让其持有不到1%的京东股份，这家中国零售商的股票在纳斯达克上市。Google pulled its search engine out of China in 2010, deciding that it would no longer censor its own search results as required by Beijing. But lately, the company has been looking for other ways to serve the planet’s largest population of internet users.2010年，谷歌从中国市场撤出了自己的搜索引擎业务，谷歌决定不再按照中国政府的要求审查搜索结果。但最近，该公司一直在寻找其他方式来为全球最大的互联网用户群提供服务。It opened a research center in China dedicated to artificial intelligence and signed an agreement with Tencent, the Chinese internet conglomerate, that will allow the two businesses to work together without fear of patent lawsuits. It made an app version of its translation service available to users in China last year. More recently, it released a Chinese version of an app that helps people manage their files. (Google’s own app store, like its email service, remains inaccessible behind the Great Firewall, as the country’s system of internet controls is known.)谷歌在中国开设了一个专门从事人工智能研究的中心，还与中国互联网巨头腾讯签署了一项协议，让这两家公司在无需担心专利诉讼的情况下合作。去年，谷歌为中国用户提供了其翻译服务的手机应用版本。最近，谷歌发布了一个帮助人们管理文件的应用程序的中文版。（谷歌自己的应用程序商店，与其电子邮件服务一样，被防火长城[the Great Firewall]挡在国门外，人们称中国的互联网控制系统为“防火长城”。）The company never quit China entirely, despite its travails. It has hundreds of employees working on research and product development in the country, which has become a major fount of engineering and scientific talent. Its online advertising business helps Chinese companies reach customers overseas.尽管困难重重，但谷歌从未全面退出中国。谷歌在中国拥有数百名从事研究和产品开发的员工，这些人已成为工程和科学人才的主要来源。谷歌的在线广告业务帮助中国公司面对海外客户。Still, mounting a broader return to the Chinese market would not be easy for Google, even if the authorities were to permit it. In the eight years since the company withdrew from China, local rivals have created formidable products in many areas in which it competes, including search, chat, video streaming and cloud computing.
不过对谷歌来说，要更大范围地回到中国市场并不容易，即使中国当局允许它回来的话。在谷歌退出中国后的八年里，本地对手已经在许多谷歌有竞争的领域里创造出了强大的产品，包括搜索、聊天、视频流和云计算。JD.com, meanwhile, is hoping that Google’s global reach will help it sell more products internationally. The company already counts Walmart as a major shareholder. It has extended its reach into Southeast Asia, setting up a local retail business in Indonesia, partnering on an e-commerce venture in Thailand and backing another one in Vietnam.与此同时，京东希望谷歌的全球优势将有助于京东向国际市场销售更多的产品。京东的主要股东中已经包括沃尔玛。京东也已将业务伸展到东南亚，在印度尼西亚建立了一个当地零售业务，在泰国成立的一家电子商务合资企业，还在越南支持了另一家电子商务企业。Across the world, however, JD.com will face tough competition. Alibaba, the Chinese internet behemoth, has poured billions of dollars into its Southeast Asian shopping site, Lazada, and is strengthening its logistics capabilities in that region, Europe and the Middle East.但京东将在世界上面临激烈的竞争。中国互联网巨头阿里巴巴已向其东南亚购物网站Lazada投入数十亿美元资金，并正在东南亚、欧洲和中东加强自己的物流能力。