I was in Beijing last week, and one of the news items that caught my eye was about an ongoing spat between two Chinese software giants: Tencent and Qihoo 360. They’d started shoving each other, gradually escalating until punches were thrown, and finally the Minister of Industry and Information Technology had to step in. The message was couched in nicer language, but it was basically “I’m watching you two. Don’t make me come over there!” To give you a feel for the players, Qihoo 360 is China’s largest anti-virus vendor, with more than 300 million users. Tencent, on the other hand, is the world’s third largest internet company by market cap, and has over 600 million users of its QQ instant message software.

Yesterday I came out from behind the Great Firewall of China, and what’s one of the first things I see? Seems Google and Facebook are trading slaps as well.

Chinese press are reporting in the last day or so that the government intervention seems to be having the desired affect. Can’t help but wonder if Google and Facebook would respond in the same way.