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China Retaliates in Google War, Denounces U.S. 'Information Imperialism'

by Amar Toor on January 25, 2010 at 12:40 PM

Already strained U.S.-Chinese political relations got noticeably more bellicose Saturday, after Chinese officials angrily defended a nationwide censorship policy that had recently come under heavy American criticism. After Hillary Clinton's public condemnation of China's Internet policing and recent government-endorsed cyber attacks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu fired back, vigorously defending his nation's actions on the grounds of containing "disorder" that could result from the unrestricted flow of "multifarious information." He also took issue with U.S. criticism in particular, urging America to "respect the facts and cease using so-called Internet freedom to make groundless accusations against China." As Times Online reports, Zhaoxu went on to imply that any U.S. criticism could bode ominously for overall diplomatic relations between the two superpowers -- relations that have already reached a slow boil due to disagreements over human rights, trade policies, and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

The onslaught of criticism stemmed from Google's announcement last week that it would pull out of the People's Republic over ongoing restrictions imposed on Internet users, and over a flurry of publicly orchestrated cyber attacks on political dissidents and American companies. In a statement made Friday, Secretary of State Clinton formally threw governmental support behind Google, admonishing China for the attacks and warning of international consequences. She forcefully warned, "[Countries] that violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century."


The issue, obviously, is two-fold; it consists of the specific attacks orchestrated by the Chinese government, as well as the general character of China's censorship policies. The Chinese government seems to have conflated the two, while Clinton threatened international action because of the former, and merely acknowledged a difference of opinion and a willingness to debate in regards to the latter. True, she (quite eloquently) advocated for an open "single Internet," and contended that "no individual should stay buried in the rubble of oppression." But her threats of "international condemnation" were exclusively in response to the cyber attacks, not the way China governs its citizens. China responded and reacted with indignation to the general without so much as mentioning the specific.

Even this defense, though, is contradictory. In one breath, Zhaoxu implicitly justified Chinese censorship as a means to control the kinds of political menaces that "advanced, Western nations" don't face. In the next, he maintained that the U.S. didn't have the "facts" straight, and that China does indeed support Internet freedom. So, if we get this correctly, China has to restrict information because of reasons we couldn't possibly fathom, but any accusations of restricting information are totally false. It's about time China stops dancing this circuitous tarantella of rhetoric and starts giving us some straight answers. After all, as Hillary Clinton pointed out, it's only in the country's best interest to do so. [From: Times Online]

Tags: censorship, china, google, Hillary Clinton, HillaryClinton, ma zhaoxu, MaZhaoxu, top

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