A Chinese Communist Party newspaper has accused Google of colluding with US spies, and said the firm’s retreat from China over censorship justified Beijing’s efforts to promote homegrown technology.
China’s latest blast at the world’s biggest internet search company came in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the chief newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party.
Google on Monday shut its mainland Chinese-language portal Google.cn and began rerouting searches to a Hong Kong site, over two months after it said it wouldn’t accept the self-censorship demanded by China’s Government.
For Chinese people, Google is not god, and even if it puts on a full-on show about politics and values, it is still not god
China’s Foreign Ministry said it regarded Google’s departure as the “individual act” of one company, and said the country remained welcoming of foreign investors.
But Beijing’s response to Google’s complaints about censorship and hacking has also echoed nationalist-tinged claims that Google and Washington used the dispute over internet controls to challenge Communist Party authority.
“For Chinese people, Google is not god, and even if it puts on a full-on show about politics and values, it is still not god,” said a front-page commentary in the paper.
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“In fact, Google is not a virgin when it comes to values. Its cooperation and collusion with the US intelligence and security agencies is well-known.”
“All this makes one wonder. Thinking about the United States’ big efforts in recent years to engage in internet war, perhaps this could be an exploratory pre-dawn battle,” the commentary added.
The commentary said Google’s actions should prompt China to focus more on developing its own technology.
International tension
While the tough comments may not reflect official policy, they show China’s anger at the US after recent tensions over American arms sales to Taiwan, President Barack Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, and Washington’s calls for Beijing to lift the value of its yuan.
Google “completely misjudged the situation, and does not grasp that Chinese people are extremely averse to external threats and pressure”, said the newspaper commentary.
The US State Department said Google’s decision to shut Google.cn was a business decision by the company and did not involve the US Government.
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