China confirmed Sunday it has renewed Google's license to operate in the country.
The state news agency Xinhua quoted an official with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology who said the government had approved the license for Beijing Guxiang Information Technology, which operates Google's China website.
The U.S.-based Internet company announced Friday that the license has been renewed.
In March, Google began to automatically transfer Chinese users to a website in Hong Kong to avoid Chinese Internet censorship. But the Internet company changed its policy in response to China's threats that its license would be withdrawn. In late June Google installed a link to its Hong Kong site on its China home page, allowing users to go the uncensored site, but not transferring them automatically.
Google does not censor searches on the Hong Kong site, but the Chinese government is able to block mainland users from accessing some websites that they find through the Hong Kong site. Xinhua's report Sunday says Google's China operator pledged to "abide by Chinese law," and to allow government regulators to supervise all the content it provides.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP.