China Search Wars Round-up, Plus 5 Must-Read Tech Stories From This Week

Our China tech coverage this week was pretty much dominated by the news surrounding Qihoo 360’s (NYSE:QIHU) impact on the Chinese search engine space, and the effects that we’ve been seeing among its competitors. Here’s a quick roundup of how this drama played out this week, as well as other major stories from the China tech scene over the past seven days.

Qihoo 360 Shakes up Search in China

• Aug 29: Baidu Strikes Back at Qihoo 360 Search; Qihoo Redirects to Baidu Results to Cached Pages
• Aug 29: Qihoo 360 Fights Back, Banishes Co-operation with Baidu
• Aug 29: Qihoo 360: No Mixing of Paid and Organic Links in Our Search Results Page
• Aug 30: Inside Life at Qihoo 360: Working Under Constant Fear of CEO Zhou Hongyi [EXCLUSIVE]
• Aug 30: Baidu-Qihoo War Reflects Longstanding Feud Between Zhou Hongyi and Robin Li
• Aug 31: The New Face of 360 Search, China’s Most Controversial Search Engine
• Sept 1: Amid Intense Chinese Search Wars, Qihoo 360 Buys New Office Space for $218M

But what about Sogou?

Of course Baidu and Qihoo 360 are not the only combatants in the Chinese search wars, and Sohu CEO Charlies Zhang made his voice heard on that point, speaking up for Sohu’s Sogou search engine.

• Aug 31: Not To Be Left Out, Sogou Says: We Have To Take Part in This Search War

But not everyone at Sohu feels this way, as CTO Wang Xiaochuan posted a message that sorta kinda goes against Zhang’s sentiment.

• Sept 1: Sohu CTO Calls His Boss “Really F*cking Stupid,” Says Sohu Should Stay Out of Search War

In other China tech news…

1. Kai-Fu Lee and Citron Continue to Duke It Out Over Soft Seller’s Ethics and Inaccuracies

I’m not a big fan of Kaifu Lee since his idiotic Olympic Weibo outburst. But his stand against short sellers Citron Research this past week is a promising sign that the ex-Google China boss has come to his senses.

2. Chinese Stolen Game Engine Taken Down, Thief Apologizes to Real Developer – Tech in Asia

Two weeks back we reported that a Chinese developer has copied an entire game engine from a western developer and was selling it at half price. This week we saw that drama draw to a satisfying close with the offending engine taken down and the thief making an apology. Nice.