YNOT – Google has decided to close its search business in mainland China and instead focus on its “Chinese-language version” headquartered in Hong Kong. The move is being seen as a kind of compromise in the ongoing stand-off between the internet giant and the Chinese government over censorship concerns.”Google’s compromise could resolve a 2 1/2-month impasse pitting the world’s most powerful Internet company against the government of the world’s most populous country,” wrote Michael Liedtke or the Associated Press.

Although the Google.cn site now redirects to Google.com.hk, the company is still trying to maintain some kind of presence on the mainland of China in order to recruit engineers, sell ads and keep its options open in a country that’s likely to see much wider internet growth in coming years than any other.

Google has been threatening to pull out of the Chinese market for months now, apparently angered over hacking attacks that originated from within China; the activities of the hackers led many to wonder whether they originated from the Chinese government itself. Google has been promising uncensored search results in response, but the Chinese government has refused to negotiate on that point.

“Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard,” wrote David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer. “We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement.”

So far China has not blocked access to the Hong Kong based Google service, but that could change at any moment.

“We were looking at an environment that is more difficult than it was when we started,” Drummond said in January. “Far from our presence helping to open things up, it seems that things are getting tighter for open expression and freedom.”