China yesterday rejected criticism of its Internet censorship by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying it harmed relations, as a row over Google’s threat to leave the Chinese market escalated.
Clinton had urged China on Thursday to conduct a thorough probe into cyberattacks on Google and other US companies, and lamented what she said was Beijing’s increasing efforts to control what its 384 million Web users can see.
“We firmly oppose such words and deeds, which go against the facts and are harmful to China-US relations,” foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu (馬朝旭) said, in China’s strongest comments since the Google dispute erupted last week.
“We urge the United States to respect facts and stop using the so-called Internet freedom issue to criticize China unreasonably,” he said in a statement posted on the ministry Web site.
In a major policy speech on Internet freedom in Washington, Clinton reiterated US support for “a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas.”
She called on China “to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions” revealed by Google and for “its results to be transparent.”
The two sides have become locked in a spiraling dispute over Chinese Web controls sparked by Internet giant Google’s announcement last week it would no longer obey China’s censorship rules and might pull out of the country.
Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) yesterday prodded China to respect people’s freedom to get information and to express their opinions, while hoping it continues to move on the path of peaceful development.
Siew said China’s economic development had made great strides over the past two decades and significantly raised living standards.
“We hope the peaceful development of China will continue smoothly,” he said at the 2010 Celebration of World Liberty Day.
Siew expressed concern, however, over the news that Google was thinking about withdrawing from China.
Siew said that any country that attempts to block its people’s access to information would pay a heavy price and lose opportunities to harness knowledge that could create wealth for its society.
“If China would like to see the appearance of a harmonious society, it should give room to progressive forces and respect people’s freedom to get information and their freedom of speech, which are the prerequisites for improving the economic health of society as a whole,” he said.
Google said the decision was made after it suffered cyberattacks that the company believes originated in China and appeared aimed at cracking the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
China’s government declined to respond to requests yesterday for comment on a possible investigation of the attacks.
Until yesterday, Beijing had generally held fire in the dispute, defending its censorship as necessary and saying foreign firms must comply, but refraining from hitting back at mounting US criticism over its control of the Internet.
China is believed to employ thousands of people in a vast system of Internet censorship, dubbed the “Great Firewall of China,” which polices what the world’s largest online population can see and do on the Web.
Beijing regularly invokes the need to stamp out pornography as a key reason for the controls but critics contend its primary purpose is to quell political dissent.
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco have been accused of cooperating with the “Great Firewall” by acquiescing to Beijing’s demands. In her speech, Clinton appeared to call on other companies to follow Google’s lead and defy China.
“The private sector has a shared responsibility to help safeguard free expression,” Clinton said. “And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what’s right, not simply the prospect of quick profits.”
The State Department has plans to hold a high-level meeting next month with companies that provide network services for talks on Internet freedom.
Microsoft on Thursday released a patch for an Internet Explorer 6 software hole through which China-based cyber spies allegedly probed the computer systems of Google and other companies.
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