Agreed, but Occam's Razor seems too tempting not to consider in this situation. What's more likely, that Google decided overnight to get wise to the 'evil-bein

Agreed, but Occam's Razor seems too tempting not to consider in this situation. What's more likely, that Google decided overnight to get wise to the 'evil-being' that they might have been underwriting in China for the last 5 years, or that the business circumstances shifted such that an exit from the Chinese search market made more sense for the company, and a story was thus spun?