Google Caps Active Year in China With Resumption of Developer Forum

(Beijing) — Global search giant Google held its first developer conference in Beijing after a five-year pause, the latest signal to fuel speculation that the company hopes to return to China after a high-profile withdrawal over the country's policies on self-censorship.

Google shuttered its China-based search engine in 2010 after refusing to continue complying with Beijing's policies that require all internet sites to self-police themselves for content on sensitive topics. Since then the company has maintained a site at google.cn, mostly as a placeholder for its current Chinese-language site based in Hong Kong, which has its own internet rules.