Chinese Government To Determine When Google Services Will Return

While Alphabet Inc. explains that it is getting Google's services available again in China, it points out that the problem is more with the Chinese government.

At a Startup Fest Europe, Alphabet's executive chairman and former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, said "We are working on [getting back into China]. I think our role in China is largely determined not by us but by what the Chinese government will allow."

The crowd of developers and entrepreneurs was told that Google pulled back almost every service from China in 2010 as it revealed that it was "uncomfortable with [China's] laws, which have not gotten better since we left."

But since that year, the Chinese economy has boomed, even as the smartphone market has expanded from 50 million mobile users to 700 million. While Android-based smartphones are swaying over the Chinese market, Google is not earning anything because its services, including Gmail, search, Google Maps, YouTube and Google Play are not in the market.

"What my Chinese friends say is that they want Google," Schmidt said because the company's competitors that still operate in China do so under strict restrictions that make it very difficult. Asked if public demand for access to Google and its various services could sway the Chinese government to change its restrictions, Schmidt said: "There is always hope."

Google said it was geared up to declare a Chinese version of its Play Store for Android, yet no announcement was made. CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned that over 1 million people in China were watching the live stream of Google's annual developer conference keynote.

A Chinese newspaper reported last week that Google discussed with Chinese internet company Sohu about partnering Chinese internet searches. They said that Google "would perform some of the searches," while Sohu.com's search engine, Sohu, would screen the results, according to the South China Morning Post