China blocks access to Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Ahead of the election of a new leader, China had blocked access to Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) and indeed all services related to the Internet search engine, including Gmail and Google Maps.

Citizens are also finding that internet speeds across the country are slower than usual.

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According to reports Google.com, Google.com.hk, mail.google.com, drive.google.com, play.google.com, docs.google.com, and maps.google.com are all inaccessible. People who click on them are coming up with nothing.

Google said that it feared that China's communist government had decided to block the search engine at a politically sensitive time. Restricting access to Google's search engine might make it more difficult for people in China to find information about the candidates vying to steer the ruling party during the next decide.

Slash Gear said that other subdomains may be blocked as well. "All lookups lead to the IP 59.24.3.173, which doesn’t belong to a website. Obviously, users can’t access any Google service, including Search, without the aid of a VPN or similar bypass," it said.

Google checked out the issue, and reported via a spokesperson to El Reg that “we’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end," the Slash Gear report added.

China is known for suppressing anything critical about the country and its policies and it has a running feud with Google over the way it operates and over its services. In April, for instance, China had blocked Google Drive.

YouTube, Google's popular video site, has been blocked in China since 2009, according to the company.