Google CEO Eric Schmidt used his company’s annual shareholder meeting yesterday to express his belief that the company’s business in China is stable and that its US$750 million acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob will gain regulatory approval. “All is well after a year of great tumult,” the Wall Street Journal reports Schmidt as stating. He told shareholders that the situation in China “seems to be stable” after Google shut down its mainland search engine and routed its traffic through Hong Kong to evade Chinese government censorship. Schmidt reiterated that Google wants to remain in China, although cautioned that the situation could change if Chinese authorities determine they aren’t satisfied and decide to effectively lock the company out of the world’s largest mobile – and largest and fastest-growing Internet – market.

Responding to media reports that Google has agreed to pay a US$700 million kill fee in the event it isn’t able to complete its planned purchase of AdMob, Mr Schmidt said: “We don’t expect to pay any kill fee because we expect these things to get approved.” The US Federal Trade Commission has spent several months investigating whether the deal would thwart competition in the mobile advertising market, and could still take legal action to block the acquisition. Meanwhile AP News reports that Schmidt couldn’t resist the temptation to have another jab at rival Apple. While boasting about Google’s recent gains in the mobile phone market, Schmidt stressed that the company is eager to work with all software developers and device manufacturers who want to use its Android operating system. The open attitude “is inverse to the competition,” Schmidt said. “If they say no, we say yes.”