BEIJING, China said on Saturday it had not received any request for talks from Google, as the Internet giant insists it remains firm in its plan to end censorship on search results in the communist state.   

In January Google threatened to leave China over what it said were cyber attacks aimed at its source code and at the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists around the world.

But Vice Minister Miao Wei told state run news agency Xinhua that China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had not received any word from Google on the matter.   

The company had “never informed the ministry that it was planning to withdraw from China,” he said, speaking on the sidelines of China’s annual session of the National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislature.   

Google “had never filed reports over alleged Internet regulation and cyber attacks to the ministry or requests for negotiations,” he added. Meanwhile, Google has continued to filter search engine results in China, which has the world’s largest number of online users at 384 million.   

Earlier this week, a top Google executive said in Washington that the Internet giant has set no timetable for its operations in China but remains firm in its plan to end censorship of Web search results there.   

“We are reviewing our business operations (in China) now,” Google vice president and deputy general counsel Nicole Wong told a congressional hearing on “Global Internet Freedom and the Rule of Law.”

The company, however, last month posted ads for dozens of positions in China, suggesting it may be rethinking its threat to leave the country.   

The company is seeking to hire 40 staff, including engineers, sales managers and research scientists in Beijing, Shanghai and the southern city of Guangzhou, according to advertisements seen on its website.