James Delahunty
21 Jan 2010 11:11
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Beijing to investigate the sophisticated hack of Google services during a wide-ranging speech about Internet freedoms and rights. Clinton brought up the issue of some governments attempt to erect "electronic walls" to block access to information to their Internet users. "Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century." she said.
She acknowledged that China and the U.S. had differing opinions on the matter, and said they would,"address those differences candidly and consistently." Clinton named China, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt and Vietnam as countries where there has recently been a spike in the threats to the "free flow of information". "They have expunged words, names and phrases from search engine results," Clinton said. "They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in nonviolent political speech."
Earlier on Thursday, a Chinese government official insisted that the Google hack issue should not effect relations between the United States and China. "The Google case should not be linked with relations between the two governments and countries; otherwise, it's an over-interpretation," the Xinhua News Agency reported Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei as saying.
After making several comments about the potential economic impact to countries that engage in blocking political or commercial speech, Clinton then specifically mentioned the Google situation. "We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough review of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make its announcement," she said, referring to Google's threat to leave China.