John Paczkowski

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China on “Google Farce”: Our Internet Is Open

clinton_china

“Ten of the 13 root name servers in the world are located in the US. They are the top hierarchy of the Internet, which means by controlling them, the US can define the freedom of the Internet. How can Clinton guarantee you a freedom if her country has the power to unplug you?”

Yu Wanli, an expert on international studies at Peking University

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech on Internet censorship Thursday and her call for an investigation into charges that Chinese-backed hackers attacked Google have met with a bristling and indignant response from Beijing.

In a statement posted to China’s foreign ministry Web site, Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said the United States should “cease using so-called Internet freedom to make groundless accusations against China. The US has criticised China’s policies to administer the internet, and insinuated that China restricts internet freedom. This runs contrary to the facts and is harmful to China-US relations. We urge the United States to respect the facts….China’s Internet is open.”

Well, that’s an interesting perspective on the country’s legendary Internet filtering system. Evidently, the vast infrastructure of technology that has made online dissent an impossibility doesn’t exist!

Ma’s criticism of Clinton was echoed in the China’s state-run media, which refers to the current debacle as “the Google farce.” An editorial in the Global Times today denounced Clinton’s call for free access to the Internet to be a foreign policy matter as a form of “information imperialism.”

“The U.S. campaign for uncensored and free flow of information on an unrestricted Internet is a disguised attempt to impose its values on other cultures in the name of democracy,” the editorial reads. “The U.S. government’s ideological imposition is unacceptable and, for that reason, will not be allowed to succeed.”

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