It is sometimes a little difficult to know why Google does certain things and sometimes it might be for reasons other than what is suspected.
Google has bought a stake in Maxthon. The Maxthon browser is used more in China than in any other country. However it is used around the world.
On the surface it looks as if Google did this in order to help them with the Chinese market since Google will now be the default search engine with the Maxthon browser in China. Google will replace Yahoo in some other countries.
People can only guess as to if there will eventually be more to this Google deal with Maxthon.
This link contains a few more details about the deal
Google buys in to Israeli-Chinese browser startup - Latest Headlines - BizReport
Some of the Maxthon features include:
Tabbed Browsing Interface
Mouse Gestures
Super Drag&Drop
Privacy Protection
RSS Reader
IE Extensions Support
External Utility Bar
Skinning
And Much More
Here is a link to the Maxthon site in case you want to find out more about the Maxthon browser and see if you want to give it a try
Maxthon Browser – Tabbed Internet browser software