China condemns decision by Google to lift censorship

Chinese-language Google search home page, 23 March ” border=”0″ height=”170″ hspace=”0″ vspace=”0″ width=”226″”> Chinese users are being redirected to the google.com.hk site

China has said Google’s decision to stop censoring Chinese search results is “totally wrong” and violates
its promise to abide by local laws.

The US giant is redirecting users in mainland China to its unrestricted Hong Kong site,
although Chinese firewalls mean results still come back censored..

Beijing said the decision should not affect ties with Washington.

Google threatened to leave the Chinese market completely this year after cyber
attacks traced back to China.

Chinese internet users will have no regrets if Google withdraws Chen Yafei Chinese information technology specialist

Google’s move to shut its mainland Chinese search service is a major blow to China’s international image, the BBC’s Damian Grammaticas
reports from Beijing.

It means one of the world’s most prominent corporations is saying it is no longer willing to co-operate in China’s
censorship of the internet, our correspondent says.

China has moved to further limit free speech on the web – Google’s own websites
and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists have recently come
under cyber attack.

‘Politicisation of commercial issues’

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters that Google’s move
was an isolated act by a commercial company and should not affect
China-US ties “unless politicised” by others.

GOOGLE IN CHINA 2000: A Chinese-language interface is developed for the google.com website 2006: Launch of China-based google.cn search page with censored results Mar-Jun 2009: China blocks access to Google’s YouTube site; access to other Google online services is denied to users Jan 2010: Jan 2010 Google announces it is no longer willing to censor searches in China and may pull out of the country Feb 2010: Hacking attacks on Google are traced to mainland China March 2010: Google says it will re-route searches to its Hong Kong-based site Timeline: China and net censorship

The government would handle the Google case “according to the law”, he added.

Earlier an official in the Chinese government office which oversees the internet said: “Google has violated its written
promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering
its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged
hacker attacks.”

“This is totally wrong. We’re uncompromisingly opposed to the politicisation of commercial issues, and express our
discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations
and conducts,” the unnamed official was quoted as saying by Chinese
state news agency Xinhua.

Chen Yafei, a Chinese information technology specialist, told Reuters that Google should have accepted
Chinese regulation if it wanted to operate in the country.

“Any company entering China should abide by Chinese laws,” he said.

“Google has its own credos. The fighting between Google and the Chinese
government is their own business. Chinese internet users will have no
regrets if Google withdraws.”

Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, said earlier that providing uncensored searches through the
Hong Kong-based google.com.hk website was was “entirely legal” and would
“meaningfully increase access to information for people in China”.

“We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision,
though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our
services,” he wrote in a blog post.

The White House said it was “disappointed” that Google and China had not been able to resolve their
differences.

Sophisticated censorship

One cause of the row was Google’s revelation on 12 January that it – and more than 20
other companies – had been the victim of a cyber attack that originated
inside China.

Baidu is the market leader for online search in China

During the attack Google lost some intellectual property and discovered that the attack was aimed at the GMail accounts of human
rights activists. This attack led Google to “review the feasibility” of
its Chinese operations.

In the blog entry posted on 22 March, Google said it would maintain an R&D and sales presence in China.

It said the size of its sales team would depend on how many Chinese people
can get at the Hong Kong-based site. Currently about 700 of Google’s
20,000 strong workforce are based in China.

On Sunday, state media in China attacked Google for what they described as the company’s
“intricate ties” with the US government.

Google provided US intelligence agencies with a record of its search engine results, Xinhua
said.

While Google is the world’s most popular search engine, it is a distant number two in the Chinese market, which is dominated by
Baidu.

However, because of the size and growth rate of China’s internet population, any loss of business there is likely to harm
Google’s future growth prospects.

Analysts said that initially Google’s prospects would not be dented by shutting down Google.cn as it
is responsible, at most, for 2% of its annual $24bn (£15.9bn) revenue.

China operates one of the most sophisticated and wide-reaching censorship
systems in the world.

Thousands of police officers are employed to monitor web activity and many automated systems watch blogs, chat
rooms and other sites to ensure that banned subjects, such as Tiananmen
Square, are not discussed.