Looks like Google has finally had enough of trying to work with the "harmonious society".

From CNN:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/12/google.china/

The Google blog entry itself:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/ ... china.html

An interesting blog posting by Rupert Goodwins at ZDNet UK:
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,100 ... 77b,00.htm

I suppose the key question is what will happen to access to google.com in China if google.cn closes. In the past it was occasionally blocked, but access has been fairly consistent for a while now. (some links don't work because of censorship, and the site can be temporarily unavailable if you search for the "wrong" term)

Now that Google Buzz has been embedded in Gmail, there seems a good chance that Gmail and Buzz will be blocked in China, as Buzz is effectively a competitor to Facebook and Twitter, both of which are blocked on the mainland.