Sundar Pichai, famously known as Google's chief executive, said that a censored search app in China could serve over "99% of queries," in a rare public comment about the controversial proposal.
In a conference held at San Francisco this week, Pichai said that the plan was in the "very early" stages and may not progress.
However, just early this year, Google's possible return to China - a market it abandoned over censorship concerns - was first leaked in August.
The proposal has drawn criticism from employees and human rights advocates.
Amid the controversy, Pichai said on Monday, October 15, 2019, that he did not commit to the launch. He stated that the plan was still in an exploratory stage.
"We wanted to learn what it would look like if Google were in China, so that's what we built internally," Pichai said at the Wired conference in San Francisco.
"It's very early, we don't know whether we would or could do this in China but we felt like it was important for us to explore. I think it's important for us given how important the market is and how many users there are," he said.
The firm, which is owned by Alphabet, quit China eight years ago in protest at the country's censorship laws and alleged government hacks.
However, reports in August are claiming that it had been secretively working on a new Chinese search service, referred to internally as Dragonfly.
The platform, which still requires Chinese government approval, would reportedly block or eliminate certain websites and search terms related to human rights and religion.
This has angered some employees who fear they have been unwittingly working on technology that will help China suppress free expression.
On the other hand, just earlier this month, US Vice-President Mike Pence called for Google to immediately pause its work on Dragonfly, saying in a speech that it would "strengthen Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers".
