Google CEO Tells Employees Company Isn't Close to Launching Search Engine in China

Mr. Pichai, speaking Thursday at a weekly all-hands meeting in Mountain View, Calif., was responding to criticism from employees, human rights groups and others who in recent days have voiced concerns over the Alphabet Inc. unit's work with the Chinese government. Google is developing services for Chinese citizens, including a search engine that could adhere to China's strict censors, The Wall Street Journal and others reported last week. At the meeting, Google co-founder and Alphabet president Sergey Brin sounded optimistic about doing more business in China, cautioning that progress in the country is "slow-going and complicated." Mr. Brin was instrumental in Google's decision in 2010 to withdraw its search engine from China to protest the government's censorship regime and attempts to hack into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. At the time, he described the government as having the "earmarks of totalitarianism" of the Soviet Union, where he was born.