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ECONOMICS 
FEATURED ECONOMIES 
BUSINESS TODAY 
Post-Google, China’s Internet market could increasingly resemble a lucrative, walled-off bazaar, experts say.
Those homegrown successes, however, could have trouble becoming global brands.
“If the Chinese government continues to favor domestic companies, those companies that reach critical mass could become phenomenally profitable,” said Gary Rieschel, founder of Qiming Ventures, an American venture capital firm with investments in China.
“But it may be hard for those companies to become world class without outside competition.”...
Experts say American companies have largely failed here because they don’t have local expertise, are too slow to adapt and don’t know how to deal with the Chinese government.
“Internet companies in China have to work so closely with the government,” said Xiao Qiang, of the China Internet project at the University of California, Berkeley.
“And that means the government’s political agenda can become the company’s business agenda.”
The need to censor Web sites, for example, can overwhelm smaller companies, Mr. Xiao said.
“This becomes a growing business cost. So often, small companies don’t develop.”
At this stage, analysts say the Web in China is less about innovation than about quickly delivering on the latest online trend.
“People here are quick to see trends, and to clone and innovate,” said William Bao Bean, a former Internet analyst who is now a partner at Softbank China & India Holdings.
“If one company is doing well, other companies will quickly clone it and roll it out.”...
