Google breaks through China’s Great Firewall ... but only for just over an hour

Mainland Chinese bloggers share news of access from 11.30pm on Sunday until censors pull the plug at 1.15am on Monday after the internet giant reportedly launched new IP servers in Asia

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A person poses with a magnifying glass in front of a Google search page. Photo: Reuters

Published: 2:15pm, 28 Mar 2016Updated: 5:39pm, 28 Mar 2016

The Google.com search engine could be accessed briefly in mainland China on Sunday night after years of disruption by the authorities that has almost completely blocked the use of the website.

At about 11.30pm, a growing number of Chinese internet users put posts online saying they were able to access Google’s search engine through Google.com, Google.com.hk, Google.com.vn, Google.com.sg.

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Flowers, fruits and a bottle of liquor, items associated with a traditional Chinese funeral rituals, were placed on Google's logo outside the company's China headquarters in Beijing in 2010, after the company threatened to leave the country. Photo: AP

Yet Gmail and other popular foreign websites, such as Facebook and YouTube, remained blocked during the period, according to the internet users.

Access to Google was short-lived because all the services were once again blocked by about 1.15am on Monday.

Google declined to comment on the matter.

Google must not give up on the Chinese market

Some Chinese media said on their official microblogs that access had become possible because Google had introduced a series of new IP servers – vn\jp\uk\in\ar\es\pk\sa\sg – in Asian areas.