To leave or not to leave

According to the latest report by iResearch, the search engine market in China was valued at 6.95 billion yuan ($1.02 billion) in 2009.

Competition for the search-engine market share in a country boasting 384 million Internet users is tense. Among those fighting to grab a bigger share are six major search engines, including smaller but fast-rising ones such as Tencent's Soso, Sohu's Sogou, Netease's Youdao and Microsoft's Bing.

Google's possible exit seems to have drawn the ire of the Chinese analysts and the general public, though the initial response for some was pity and sympathy.

"The earth will not stop rotating even if Google pulls out of China; Chinese Internet users are not inseparable with Google," a Xinhua commentary reported.

He Xing, a lecturer at Shanghai University of Technology, said that Google's decision not to censor its content is a deliberate provocation.

"Google's excuse is that the Chinese government imposes too much restriction on free flow of information. Actually, the US does the same," he said, referring to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Internet freedom speech.

Cao Junbo, chief analyst of iResearch, a professional Internet media consulting agency based in Shanghai, said that it is hard to judge whether Google will withdraw from China or if this is merely another show to pressure the Chinese government to bow to its wishes.

"There are just too many possibilities. It could pull out of China totally or only close its China office or some of its services," he said.

The company's other operations include its research center in Beijing and a sales force that sells advertising on the Chinese-language Google.com search service, based outside China, to advertisers inside the country, according to the Financial Times.

Google has become a sweetheart for some in academia, who deem its search results "professional and comprehensive."

"Google's search results, maps and translation services are incomparable to domestic search engines," said one regular user, Zhang Yuanyuan, from Changsha, Hunan.

Google entered China in 2006 and reportedly agreed to censor some of its results. It now accounts for around 30 percent of China's search engine market. Baidu, China's leading search engine, has a 60 percent market share.