Google has taken a stake in Tianya.cn, the Chinese social networking site, in what is expected to be the first of several deals forged to broaden the company’s controversial presence in the world’s second-largest online market.

A spokesman for the search company confirmed that Google had invested in Tianya.cn. The move highlights the trend for Western internet groups to tackle the Chinese market with domestic assistance, through partnerships with local players or strategic investments. Details of the deal were not given, but Chinese sources suggested that the holding could be as much as 60 per cent.

This month, Google executives suggested that the company intended to buy one or two China-focused internet companies and invest in about five more in the next year.

In April the search giant revealed that it had acquired a stake in Maxthon, a Chinese internet browser that competes with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

China, which has at least 150 million internet users, second only to the United States, is seen as a key prize in e-commerce. However, Google has struggled to break into the country, despite changing its name in the territory to “Gu Ge” and controversially agreeing to toe Beijing’s line on online censorship. In the search market, Baidu.com, the domestic leader with about 60 per cent of the market, has nearly three times Google’s users.

Other Western internet companies have also struggled. EBay, the world’s largest online auction house, is being crushed in China by Taobao, the domestic auction site owned by Alibaba, the company into which Yahoo! poured its struggling China business two years ago to avoid going it alone on the mainland.

Facing an unusual level of resistance to its brand and technology, Google has instead forged Chinese partnerships. Its search technology powers several Chinese portal sites.

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