Google Inc.’s partial withdrawal of operation in China brought condemnation and signs of pressure from the government Tuesday, while leaving Chinese Web surfers wonder whether the company’s new offshore search engine site would be blocked by censors.
Google decided to move its China-based search functions from the mainland to Hong Kong. The movement opened a new phase of the two-month-long battle between the world’s most powerful Internet company, and a government that tightly restricts the Web in the planet’s most populous market.
Meanwhile, online service provider like TOM Online is backing up from its affiliation with Google for fear of running afoul of mainland censorship rules.
