Google's Play Store is still banned in mainland China, along with most of the U.S. company's services. Even with the ban, Google is allowing Chinese developers to upload apps to Google Play, which can be sold in other countries.

It is not clear how developers will get past China's firewall barrier - Google's back-end is not banned - it just means the developer will have a hard time tracking the progress of their app and reaping the rewards.

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The Chinese Android market is swarmed with apps stores and skins. Without the Google Play Store, it falls on the hands of the manufacturers to implement a reliable store and additional apps, considering Chrome and Search do not work in China.

Google has had an uneasy relationship with China since they pulled out of the country in 2010 due to censorship concerns. The Internet has changed quite a bit since then, with DMCA and government claims becoming more relevant on the Internet.

Still, compared to the rest of the world, China has a poor record when it comes to censorship. Google is obviously trying to play nice to get back into the Chinese market, with the explosion of mobile users in the past four years making it very valuable.

China's Internet regulator Lu Wei seems untouched by these kind gestures from U.S. companies, claiming the Chinese Internet has "rules to follow" and these companies were deemed unworthy of working inside China.

Facebook is another company vying for Chinese interest. CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently visited China and gave a speech in full Mandarin, he also claimed to love the Chinese culture, a hit with the Chinese citizens who were able to watch the interview.

China's World Internet Conference is taking place this week in Wuzhen, near Alibaba's HQ. Even though Amazon, Microsoft and LinkedIn are attending, a lot of big names have been left out from the "world", while most Chinese companies are in attendance.

The conference is a means to establish China as a greater power when it comes to the Internet. With Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, Weibo and other large Internet companies coming out of China, we cannot argue the power China currently has on the Internet.

TagsChina apps store