In Google's dispute with China, the company risks losing access to not only millions of personal computers but also the world's largest cell phone market.

Google announced Monday it would no longer self-censor search results as required by the Chinese government and instead redirect searches to its Hong Kong-based uncensored search engine.

In a response to the switch, Li Yizhong, China's minister of industry and information technology, said, "If you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulation, you are unfriendly, you are irresponsible and you will have to bear the consequences."

So far, some of these consequences include losing partnerships with Chinese companies that use Google software in mobile phone search applications due to government pressure.

In order to secure its place in the emerging Chinese mobile web search market, Google offered its platform for free to Chinese smart phone manufacturers.

Google is delaying the launch of these programs now, and some Chinese mobile companies turn to Bing, Microsoft's web search application, as a safer alternative.

China Mobile, the largest cellular communications company in the country, plans to scrap its deal with Google that would have placed Google's search engine on its mobile Web home page, although it was originally one of the company's first partners in China.

Representatives for Google feel the switch to Hong Kong "is a sensible solution to the challenge that we've faced;" however, we "are well aware that at any time [the Chinese government's] great firewall could prevent users from accessing our services," said Alan Davidson, director of U.S. public policy for Google.

Google controls nearly 30 percent of China's Internet search market, and blocking Google entirely is not desirable for the Chinese government since many educated and opinionated citizens are loyal Google users.

Since Google opened its China-based services about four years ago, it has self-censored search responses to remove those results the Chinese government found objectionable.

In mid-December, the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists were hacked by sources originating in China.

The Chinese government rejects any claims of its involvement, yet Google reacted to the hacking by no longer complying with the government's censorship requirements.

Google's Chief Legal Officer David Drummond characterized the switch as taking a "stand around censorship" and feels that "it is good for our business to push for free expression."

There is no reason the conflict should hurt relations between the U.S. and China, believes Qin Gang, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, "unless someone wants to politicize it."