Google said the US web giant had yet to receive a response from the Chinese government on its application to renew its Internet Content Provider licence, which expired on Wednesday.

"We are waiting to hear from the government," Jessica Powell, Google's Tokyo-based spokeswoman, told AFP.

The Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed official in charge of Internet administration as saying the licence renewal application had been submitted late and government agencies were "using the time to go through procedures".

"A quick reply is expected soon," the official said.

The firm that administers Google.cn pledged in the application letter to "abide by the Chinese law" and "provide no law-breaking contents," the official added, according to Xinhua.

Google said Tuesday it would stop automatically redirecting Chinese users to an unfiltered site in Hong Kong, a process it began in March in response to state censorship and cyberattacks it claims came from China.

The change in tack in China -- which has more than 400 million Internet users -- was aimed at addressing government complaints about the censorship issue.

Google said Wednesday that search queries produced by its Google Suggest function appeared to be blocked for mainland users in China.

"Normal searches that do not use query suggestions are unaffected," Google said in a statement.

Google Suggest provides a user with suggested words as they type a query into the Google search box. Typing in the letters "ob," for example, may prompt a suggestion for "Obama."

A web page maintained by Google on the accessibility to its services in mainland China, google.com/prc/report.html, listed its web search service as "partially blocked" as of Wednesday.

The service had been listed as "fully or mostly accessible" for previous days this week.

AFP attempts to conduct searches on Google Suggest in mainland China on Thursday did not prompt any suggestions. The same type of searches on Chinese search engine Baidu were unaffected.

It was not immediately clear, however, whether the change in accessibility was linked to Google's ongoing dispute with the Chinese authorities over censorship.

Google said Tuesday all mainland users would now be directed to a new landing page on google.cn, which links to the uncensored Hong Kong site.

"It's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable -- and that if we continue redirecting users, our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed," Google's chief legal officer David Drummond said on the company's official blog.

"Without an ICP license, we can't operate a commercial website like google.cn -- so Google would effectively go dark in China," he said.

Drummond said Google re-submitted its business licence application based on what it called a "new approach."

"This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self-censor and, we believe, with local law," Drummond said.

The spat between Google and the Chinese government spilled over into the diplomatic arena, with Washington and Beijing waging a months-long war of words on the issues of Internet freedom and troubles faced by foreign firms in China.

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