China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba (阿里巴巴) yesterday condemned as “reckless” its partner Yahoo’s support of Google, which has threatened to pull out of the Asian nation over censorship and cyber attacks.
“Alibaba Group has communicated to Yahoo that Yahoo’s statement that it is ‘aligned’ with the position Google took last week was reckless given the lack of facts in evidence,” the firm’s spokesman John Spelich said in an e-mail.
“Alibaba doesn’t share this view,” he said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Google announced on Tuesday that it would no longer censor search engine results in China and possibly leave the world’s largest online market, complaining about cyber attacks and censorship by the Chinese Communist Party regime.
China-based cyber spies struck the Internet giant and reportedly more than 30 other firms in an apparent bid for computer source codes, intellectual property and information about human rights activists around the world.
A spokeswoman for Yahoo, which owns 39 percent of Alibaba, on Wednesday welcomed Google’s decision.
“Yahoo is committed to protecting human rights and takes our users’ privacy and security very seriously,” the spokeswoman said.
“We condemn any attempts to infiltrate company networks to obtain user information,” he said.
“We stand aligned with Google that these kinds of attacks are deeply disturbing and strongly believe that the violation of user privacy is something that we as Internet pioneers must all oppose,” she said.
Alibaba controls Yahoo’s operations in China and also runs the nation’s top online auction site Taobao.com and business-to-business e-commerce platform Alibaba.com.
Chinese authorities regularly block content and Web sites they deem politically objectionable in a vast censorship system in a country with over 380 million online users.
Social networking site Facebook, Google’s video-sharing system YouTube and micro-blogging Web site Twitter are also blocked.
Taiwan’s exports soared to an all-time high of US$61.8 billion last month, surging 49.7 percent from a year earlier, as the global frenzy for artificial intelligence (AI) applications and new consumer electronics powered shipments of high-tech goods, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. It was the first time exports had exceeded the US$60 billion mark, fueled by the global boom in AI development that has significantly boosted Taiwanese companies across the international supply chain, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a media briefing. “There is a consensus among major AI players that the upcycle is still in its early stage,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-Wong tomorrow, which it said would possibly make landfall near central Taiwan. As of 2am yesterday, Fung-Wong was about 1,760km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving west-northwest at 26kph. It is forecast to reach Luzon in the northern Philippines by tomorrow, the CWA said. After entering the South China Sea, Typhoon Fung-Wong is likely to turn northward toward Taiwan, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said, adding that it would likely make landfall near central Taiwan. The CWA expects to issue a land
‘SECRETS’: While saying China would not attack during his presidency, Donald Trump declined to say how Washington would respond if Beijing were to take military action US President Donald Trump said that China would not take military action against Taiwan while he is president, as the Chinese leaders “know the consequences.” Trump made the statement during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes program that aired on Sunday, a few days after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea. “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘we would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in the interview. However, he repeatedly declined to say exactly how Washington would respond in
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session yesterday while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival- threatening
RSS