Search engine Google became accessible in China for nearly two hours after around six years of being blocked by authorities, according to online posts by Chinese internet users.
From 11.30pm on Sunday until around 1.15am on Monday Google could be accessed in China via several domains, including google.com, google.com.hk, google.com.vn and google.com.sg.
According to a report on Monday in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, citing net users' posts on social networking sites and web pages, the search engine was operational during this period, although other Google services such as Gmail, or websites such as Facebook, remained blocked.
The explanation offered by some Chinese media outlets on their Weibo accounts (China's equivalent of Twitter) or WeChat was that Google had introduced a series of new IP servers for some Asian regions, which the censoring mechanism failed to recognise for a space of almost two hours.
In that time, some users posted online it was possible to access Google, and many, like Li Yue, an engineer from Shenzhen, began celebrating its return to China.
"I asked many of my friends to try it themselves. I felt so happy and excited, although I was not sure if it was a temporary glitch or a change of policy," Li said.
However, at 1.16am, another user, Xiohu Erin, confirmed on Weibo, "Now, it's blocked again. We should remember the short period of happiness."
Google abruptly ceased most of its operations in mainland China in 2010 over cyberattacks against Gmail users and following disagreements with the government on censorship of search results.
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, Google's parent company, said at a tech forum in Beijing in November that Google wants to increase its presence in China and is in constant dialogue with the country's authorities.
