Google, China in talks for comeback: Report
China and Google are in talks for the Internet giant’s return to the Chinese mainland after it was pulled out seven years ago following a bitter spat with Beijing over censorship rules.
“China has been in touch with Google through various channels. Last year, leaders of our country’s important department had further communication with Google,” Liu Binjie, a standing committee member of China’s Parliament the National People’s Congress and former head of the General Administration of Press and Publication said.
Currently, Google Search as well other services, including email services are blocked in China and they can be accessed only with VPNs (virtual private networks).
Google Scholar, a search engine for scholarly literature, was among the services on Beijing’s priority list for re-entry, Mr Liu was quoted as saying by Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post Sunday.
There was hope that a part of Google’s business would return to China first, gradually followed by others, Mr Liu said.
“The academic sector will be the first to get through. China’s focus is on (making) academic progress, such as academic exchanges as well as (exchanges in) science and culture, instead of news, information or politics,” he said.
Other Google functions under negotiation included “service functions that do not involve (politically) sensitive information,” the lawmaker said.
But no timetable had yet been set for Google’s return, he said. Google pulled its search engine out of mainland China in 2010 and established in Hong Kong after a bitter spat with Beijing over its strict censorship rules.
However, with 721 million web users, China is the world’s biggest Internet market and remained an attractive destination for Google. Only Chinese language Internet search engines prospered.