Yahoo’s Yang Says It’s More Important To Be In China Than Risk Of Not Participating

News.com reports that Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang said, “It is more important for us to participate, not only for economic reasons, but to be able to help shape where the industry is going.” Yang said that Yahoo has to balance the “risk of not participating” and overall, “we are seeing changes, on the whole, for the positive” in the Chinese market. Yang seems to take a different angle with his reasoning for operating in China, when compared to Barry Diller’s Keynote where he commented that being in China is about being about to “stomach operating in a country” and that operating in China is more of a political decision then a business decision. Yang replied to giving up details of a Chinese dissident saying; “We feel horrible about that…We have no way of preventing that beforehand….If you want to do business there you have to comply.” So can Yahoo! stomach it? Can Yahoo! influence the political gates?