Google’s chief executive defended his company’s plan to explore a search engine tailored for users in China despite concerns that would mean complying with the country’s strict internet censors.

In his most extensive public remarks on the topic, Sundar Pichai said entering China in some ways aligns with the company’s mission to provide information to the world’s population, since one-fifth of those people reside in China. Even complying with China’s censors, he said, Google would be able to deliver search results to more than 99% of queries and in some cases deliver more helpful results than users currently get from local search engines.