Even without a search engine, here are 5 things Google is still doing in China

Google’s plan to build a censored search engine in China have ground to a halt. Engineers on the so-called “Project Dragonfly” are no longer allowed to view search queries from a decoy search engine set up in China, effectively pausing the venture, according to The Intercept.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the report and instead referred the South China Morning Post to Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s previous congressional testimony. Last week, the CEO said Google has no current plans to relaunch a search engine in China.

The development brings Google back to where it was in 2010, when it pulled its search engine out of mainland China. Since then, most Google services have been blocked in the country.

But it doesn’t mean that Google is entirely absent in China. Here’s five other ways Google is still present in the country.

Whether it’s Huawei or Xiaomi, smartphones made by Chinese manufacturers almost invariably run on Android.

But the Android you’d see in China is quite different from what it is for the rest of the world. For one, Google Play is missing. Instead, you’ll find individual app stores from the phone makers themselves or Chinese tech giants like Tencent or Baidu. Plus, Android on Chinese handsets tends to be heavily customized to work well with popular local apps like WeChat. However, it can feel clumsy and unnatural to users outside the country.

Although Google Play is banned in China, several other Google apps are available on iOS and Chinese Android app stores. Most require a virtual private network (VPN) to work because they need to connect to Google’s servers.

But there are some exceptions. Google Translate officially returned to China last year and remains one of the most popular iOS translation apps in the country, according to data from App Annie. Earlier this year, Google followed up with a Chinese version of its file management app Files Go, which launched on several Chinese Android app stores.

Snapseed is another Google app with a Chinese following. Its photo editing features can function without access to Google’s servers, which means people can use it without scaling China’s “great firewall.”

Besides bringing existing apps to China, Google has also embraced local platforms. WeChat carries Google’s Quick Draw – a game that lets an AI guess what you’re doodling.

It comes in the form of a mini program. Think of it as a tiny app that lives within a bigger app. Each program is smaller than 10MB, so you can launch them almost instantly from inside WeChat.

It’s not hard to see why Google might want a foot in WeChat’s door: The app has monthly active users that’s more than three times as many as the US population.

Also this year, Google spinoff Waymo set up a subsidiary in Shanghai. Official filings showed the business would cover design and tests for autonomous car parts and related products, as well as various consulting services.

Google’s entrance into the space comes as China accelerates its push for self-driving cars. The government has declared smart cars a national priority and issued national guidelines for driverless cars. Google China’s rival Baidu, which was handpicked by the government last year to lead the effort, rolled out its first fleet of driverless buses this year.

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