Even if Google dies, its replacement will still be equally tempted to censor dissenting voices, in order to please the people in charge.
I have come to define the magnitude of need to represent how far out of your internal value system and the law are you willing to ago to satisfy a "need." I'm not sure what the units are, desperation perhaps.
For example, I "need" to eat to live but at the present time my need is modest because I have enough money to buy food to eat. At my current level I wouldn't steal food (go outside the law), or misrepresent my state of poverty to a food bank (go outside my internal values) in order to acquire food. So the magnitude of that need is "small."
However, if I was unemployed, out of savings, and behind on my bills, the calculus changes. I really need to eat, and in that situation might do things I would not normally do (like rummage around in trash cans for discarded food).
It is clear to me that Google, like every company, needs revenue in order to survive. The stronger the need for that revenue, the more willing they become to compromise the user experience, the law, and/or their internal values.
To me, their actions of the last few years appear to directly contradict what at one time were core internal values. Whether its the level of monetization of their own properties, or their willingness to cooperate with an authoritarian state to keep information away from their population. I see their taking of these steps as an outcome of their great need for revenue.
China is the second largest economy on the planet, and Google does not appear to be willing to hold true to their values and forego the revenue that economy could potentially produce for them. That is the reasoning by which I come to the conclusion that Google needs China.
That said, I see this sort of thing a bit differently.
If Google is all powerful and a monopoly and never in danger of being killed, why comply with an authoritarian foreign nation to remove comments that are amplifying an anti-government sentiment? Why should Google care if the government of China is feeling a bit insecure about their own population's loyalty?
I worked at Google during "China Debacle #1", where Google went to China as an uncensored search engine, left in the middle of China Debacle #2, when China infiltrated Google's infrastructure to use it to track dissidents, and watched from the outside (as many here did) for China Debacle #3, when Google tried to create a censored search engine for China.
Why does Google need China so badly, that they are willing to compromise their values (debacle #3 and this comment censoring behavior)?
I don't think you need the antitrust legislation. I think Google is slowly dying and as they die their ideals wash away. Clean user experience, gone, Useful free services with return only positive feelings for the brand, gone. Employee perks, fading away. Lofty slogans of not being evil, gone.
This compliance, sometimes forced by edict in the EU's antitrust case, sometimes forced by coercion, tells me that Google isn't powerful, it is weak. It has lost its way and may not survive if it is unable to find its way back to something good.