You know that Google used to operate in China until 2010 where it voluntarily* quit Chinese market?

* In a sense that Google didn't want to follow Chinese laws anymore.

Of course they play a role, and those same Chinese laws also dictate that any foreign IT company needs to have a local partner. But in the unlikely event of Google agreeing to a JV that cedes enough power to a local company, then sure, why not? That's how eg. AWS China operates: https://www.amazonaws.cn/en/about-aws/china/

FWIW, Google already has a substantial presence in China, but they don't target consumers there.

Google search is not available to consumers, but Google Ads are, and they definitely target any eyeballs they can. Of course most Chinese websites don't use Google for their ads, but when a Chinese user visits a foreign website that does, Google controls what they'll be seeing. And to be allowed to keep doing that, Google censors the ads they show: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-bans-vpn-ads-in-china/

That's not how the law works at all. The actual issue is data collection in China meaning data collected in China must be stored in China. Foreign tech companies just choose to have a local partner to avoid direct liability.

I work at a French software company in Shanghai (outside any pilot zone fwiw) and we don't have or need a local partner. Our software is on-prem so data storage is not an issue.

China allows Bing after it censored its content.