China cagey over Google’s uncensored search engine pitch

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, said this week that he hoped to soon announce the result of talks with Chinese authorities on offering an uncensored search engine in China.

"Google has made its case, both publicly and privately," China's minister of industry and information technology, Li Yizhong, said. He did not however confirm directly whether his ministry was in talks with Google.

The search engine giant had in January threatened to exit China if it was not allowed to offer an unfiltered Chinese search engine, after it was targeted in cyber attacks from China (See: Google threatens to exit China after cyber attacks).  

Responding to questions from reporters as to what action Chinese authorities would take if Google stopped filtering search results, Li said, if firms did not respect Chinese laws, they would be seen as unfriendly and irresponsible and the consequences would be on the firms

Complimenting Google on having gained a 30-per cent share of the Chinese market, three years since its launch, Li said Google was welcome to expand share further as long as it abided by Chinese law.

He added that it was up to Google to stay in China's market or quit.

Ministry officials have failed to take a definite line wavering between denial and confirmation that talks had been going on, in response to repeated media questions during China's annual legislative session.