I think this is a mis-reading of how China conducts business. China isn't interested in just establishing back doors in the dominant players in the market. They're interested in both dictating to foreign companies what they must censor and report, but also they're interested in establishing local competitors that will have state sponsored advantages in the local market in the long term in order to achieve economic dominance.

So the question here isn't whether Google will pay the price of sacrificing it's principles for market share. It's whether Google will pay the price of sacrificing its principles for a short term opportunity of a market at the cost of possible IP theft that could threaten its existence internationally.

Oh, and that's before we get on to the question of whether what China is asking for is limited to China, or whether once established Google can start asking for deprioritizing of tiananmen square mentions on Google in Europe or America.