The Chinese government has yet to decide whether to renew Google’s Internet Content Providers (ICP) license to operate a web site inside the country.

It’s been a week now since the license expired and Google submitted paperwork proposing to scotch the regime’s censorship with an intermediate “landing page” where users have to click on the message “We have moved to google.com.hk.”

To Beijing’s irritation Google had been automatically redirecting search traffic to Hong Kong since Google pulled the pin on the hand grenade in March.

The Chinese government has made it clear it wouldn’t tolerate Google’s redirection gambit.

China Daily, an English-language propaganda arm of the government, said Wednesday that “it may take some time” for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to decide about extending the license. It said Google submitted its application “quite late.” Without a license, Google could get kicked out of the country.

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