Access to Naver, South Korea's largest Internet portal, has been suddenly restored in China following a complete blackout last week.

As of Monday morning, Naver could be partially accessed in major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, and after noon local time, Naver features such as its search engine and news and dictionary services were up and running, however, Naver Blog remained blocked.

Earlier, there had been problems with accessing the South Korean portal around June fourth, which marked the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, before it completely went dark last Friday. Chinese users had to indirectly log onto Naver by installing a virtual private network(VPN) program.

Daum, another South Korean portal, has been blocked in China since January, but unlike Naver, it still remains cut off. 

Beijing appears to be stepping up control on foreign websites such as Wikipedia and Western media outlets, especially following mass protests in Hong Kong against a controversial extradition bill.

Experts are not sure why Naver was restored, but some say it may be temporary as service providers conduct checks on their servers.

Others speculate Beijing, aware of criticism and complaints, may have relented.