A Chinese flag flies outside the Google China headquarters in Beijing, China, on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010. Nelson Ching | Bloomberg | Getty Images

There was hope that a part of Google's business would return to China first, gradually followed by others, the lawmaker said. "The academic sector will be the first to get through," Liu said. "China's focus is on [making] academic progress, such as academic exchanges as well as [exchanges in] science and culture, instead of news, information or politics." Other Google functions under negotiation included "service functions that do not involve [politically] sensitive information," according to the lawmaker.

But no timetable had yet been set for Google's return, he said. Since Google pulled its search engine out of mainland China in 2010 after a bitter spat with Beijing over its strict censorship rules, the internet giant has from time to time expressed its desire to venture back into the world's biggest internet market. China has 721 million users and the number is still growing. In 2015, Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt told a tech conference in Beijing that Google was in constant dialogue with Beijing as it sought to "serve the whole of China". Alphabet is Google's parent company.