Beijing, China (CNN) -- There's no reason China's spat with Internet search giant Google should hurt relations with the United States, China's foreign ministry said Tuesday. A day earlier, Google announced that it had stopped censoring search results in China. "The Google incident is just an individual action taken by one company. I can't see it having any impact on Sino-U.S. relations, unless someone wants to politicize it," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Tuesday. "It is not the image of China that has been undermined, rather it is that of Google." Google's announcement came amid speculation that the search giant would pull out of China entirely.
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Dispute over censorship an isolated issue, foreign ministry spokesman says
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Google routing Chinese users to site based in less restrictive Hong Kong
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Decision fuels speculation that Google will pull out of China altogether
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China could block all outside search engines' access to info inside China
"Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, [Google's China employees] have continued to focus on serving our @placeholder users and customers," the blog said.