According to my journalist friends from China, the Chinese Communist Party yesterday, through the Propaganda Department, issued warnings to all media outlets to not write anything about Google's decision to disregard censorship rules. It's likely (not certain) that Google's departure from the Chinese market is imminent, leaving China with Baidu as the only search engine.
The People's Daily (and it's International sister, The Global Times) has developed a spin that Google is leaving for business purposes. They further suggest that Google wants to save face by making some noise about censorship (which only prohibits pornography) and hacked emails (which happens all over the world every day).
Google's timing and motives are open to anyone's interpretation, but there is no denying that hundreds of millions of people will soon be denied full use of the internet. The internet in China may be morphing into an intranet.
Google is not the only search engine in the world, and possibly not the best. But none of the major players are in China, only Baidu, which would be considered entirely inadequate in any other country in the world.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this is the profound sense of insecurity shown by the Chinese Communist Party. They are unable to defend their censorship. They are unwilling to listen to opposing viewpoints on the internet about it. They will shut down and shut out opposing voices.
I think all of this smells like a disaster waiting to happen. In a democracy, if you don't like the government, you vote them out of office. That isn't an option in China. Neither is open disagreement. At some point, this is going to break wide open and heaven help the CCP. Because no one in China will.