US Urges China to Look into Google Attacks

The United States pressed China to look into the recent claimed cyber attacks on Google on January 21st, 2010. As a result of alleged software infiltration, Google had earlier raised the prospect of pulling out of China altogether, and now Hillary Clinton - the US Secretary of State - has made a major speech on the subject, simultaneously making a hard case for action against cyber criminals in general.

"Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation", she stressed. "In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation's networks can be an attack on all."

Mrs Clinton emphasised the positive benefits that the internet had brought to China, but urged Beijing to take action where the Google attacks were concerned, stating: "We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions. We also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent."

Google in China

Google's presence in China began in 2006. Then, a degree of flak was aimed at the US firm for complying with Chinese requests on several controversial issues. These included barring the availability of specific search results related to China's history, like the 1989 events in Tiananmen Square.

Referring to China, the Secretary of State said any nation that put up barriers to obtaining free information was in danger of isolating itself from "the progress of the next century."

"We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas", she said.

Google Cyber Attacks

News of the alleged Google cyber attacks emerged on January 12th - nine days ago - when the company said internet hackers had attempted to violate its software, along with email accounts owned by human rights campaigners in China. It referred to the attacks as "highly sophisticated."

Approximately 350 million people in China have access to the internet - a national figure unparalleled anywhere else in the world. Around a third of these opt for Google as their search engine of choice.