Google Denies Rumors It Is Resuming Full Services on Chinese Mainland

By Du Zhihang and Denise Jia

Google on Friday denied widely circulating online claims that it would fully restore its services in Chinese mainland this fall, quashing speculation that its search engine, Gmail, YouTube and other platforms were about to return after a 15 year absence.

A screenshot purporting showing an official Google China announcement spread on Chinese social media, claiming that “from Sept. 1, 2025, Google is authorized to fully resume services in Chinese mainland” via the domain google.cn. It suggested that users would once again have direct access to Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Play and Google Drive.

Google told Caixin that the screenshot was a fake and “not from Google.”

Google launched its simplified and traditional Chinese search services in 2000, later expanding to include Google News, Google Docs and the Google Pinyin input method. In 2006, it launched the google.cn site for mainland users. However, by early 2010, the company had stopped censoring search results and began redirecting traffic to its Hong Kong site amid hacking incidents and disputes with Chinese authorities.

Since its exit from the consumer market, Google has maintained only enterprise facing operations in China. These include advertising services for Chinese companies expanding globally, cloud computing solutions and developer outreach for open source platforms such as TensorFlow and Kubernetes. Its Android operating system is still widely used by Chinese smartphone makers like Xiaomi and Vivo, though most handsets in China do not come pre installed with Google services such as the Play Store.

Despite the absences of consumer products, Google has continued to support local companies through AI and cloud services, and has hosted developer events in China.

This year, the company has faced increased regulatory scrutiny in the country. In February 2025, the State Administration for Market Regulation opened an antitrust investigation into Google over alleged violations of China’s Anti Monopoly Law.

Other major U.S. tech firms have scaled back consumer operations in China as well. LinkedIn shut down its localized job search app in August 2023, ending nine years of consumer facing services, laying off 174 staff as it consolidated its China business.

Before LinkedIn’s departure, Airbnb made a similar strategic shift. In May 2022, the company announced that it would suspend support for domestic listings, experiences and bookings in China to focus solely on outbound travel.

Contact reporter Denise Jia (huijuanjia@caixin.com)

caixinglobal.com is the English-language online news portal of Chinese financial and business news media group Caixin. Global Neighbours is authorized to reprint this article.

Image: Naiyana – stock.adobe.com