**China says Google’s decision to stop censoring search results is “totally wrong” and violates its promise to abide by Chinese laws.**It was condemning the US-based internet giant’s decision to redirect all its mainland China customers to an uncensored Hong Kong-based site.
However, China’s firewalls are now censoring sensitive information.
Google threatened to leave the Chinese market completely this year after cyber attacks which it traced back to China.
Google’s move to shut its mainland Chinese search service is a major blow to China’s international image, the BBC’s Damian Grammaticas reports from Beijing.
It means one of the world’s most prominent corporations is saying it is no longer willing to co-operate in China’s censorship of the internet, our correspondent says.
China has moved to further limit free speech on the web - Google’s own websites and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists have recently come under cyber attack.
Sophisticated censorship
One cause of the row was Google’s revelation on 12 January that it - and more than 20 other companies - had been the victim of a cyber attack that originated inside China.
During the attack Google lost some intellectual property and discovered that the attack was aimed at the GMail accounts of human rights activists. This attack led Google to “review the feasibility” of its Chinese operations.
In a blog entry posted on 22 March, Google said it would maintain an R&D and sales presence in China.
It said the size of its sales team would depend on how many Chinese people can get at the Hong Kong-based site. Currently about 700 of Google’s 20,000 strong workforce are based in China.
On Sunday, state media in China attacked Google for what they described as the company’s “intricate ties” with the US government.
Google provided US intelligence agencies with a record of its search engine results, Xinhua news agency said.
While Google is the world’s most popular search engine, it is a distant number two in the Chinese market, which is dominated by Baidu.
However, because of the size and growth rate of China’s internet population, any loss of business there is likely to harm Google’s future growth prospects.
Analysts said that initially Google’s prospects would not be dented by shutting down Google.cn as it is responsible, at most, for 2% of its annual $24bn (£15.9bn) revenue.
“Near-term, not that big a deal,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Asset Management. “Long-term, if this stays in place, it’s a negative. China is certainly a great growth opportunity.”
China operates one of the most sophisticated and wide-reaching censorship systems in the world.
Thousands of police officers are employed to monitor web activity and many automated systems watch blogs, chat rooms and other sites to ensure that banned subjects, such as Tiananmen Square, are not discussed.