Japan’s Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said Thursday the government will demand Google remove the Chinese name of the disputed archipelago in the East China Sea known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan from Google Maps (GOOG), the Internet search giant’s web mapping service, according to the Japanese press. The uninhabited islands go by the name Diaoyu in Chinese.

“It’s a totally sensible, justifiable action,” the minister was quoted as saying. “I think the government should take concerted action if deemed necessary. The Foreign Ministry will steadfastly make a demand.”

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In a statement posted to the Ministry’s Web site Monday evening, spokesperson Nguyen Phuong Nga indignantly dismissed accusations that the Vietnamese government has been using botnets to silence opposition to a bauxite mining operation in the country run by China’s state-owned mining group, Chinalco.

“Such comments are groundless,” said Nga. “We have on many occasions clearly expounded our view on issues relating to access to and use of information and information technology, including the Internet. Vietnam law puts in place specific regulations against computer virus and malware as well as on information security and confidentiality.”

Sounds eerily similar to China’s bristling response to Google (GOOG) claims that it had detected a targeted attack on its corporate infrastructure originating in China, doesn’t it?

Which is not to say that the two are in any way linked. At the moment, security researchers say they are not. It’s just that indignant disavowals like these do seem to be the go-to PR strategy in countries where online political censorship to is known to be pervasive.

Clearly, Google’s (GOOG) redirection of Google.cn to Google.hk and the implied reminder that Hong Kong is free and mainland China is not, did not go over well with Beijing.

Gang did not comment on the legality of Google’s new approach to China or explain how his country’s government will respond. But he did reiterate Beijing’s you-will-play-by-our-rules mandate to foreign business. Said Gang: “Any foreign company operating in China must abide by Chinese laws and regulations.”

Was he implying that China feels Google is violating its laws by offering an uncensored search service from Hong Kong? That’s not yet clear, though I’m sure it will become more so in the days ahead. Already, there are reports that Google searches for sensitive or banned terms conducted from China are returning error messages.

PREVIOUSLY:

• China: Google Broke Promise, Wrong to Stop Censoring
• Google Shutters Google.cn
• China to Google: Go Ahead and Leave, Ya Big Loser
• Report: Google Bailing on China in Early April
• Beijing to Google’s China Partners: Nice Site You Got There. Shame if Something Happened to It.
• China: We Are in Talks With Google. Also, We Are Not in Talks With Google.
• Chinese Scientists Recalibrate Google’s Evil Scale
• Chinese Schools Tied to Attacks on Google? Where’d You Read That, Mad Magazine?
• World War WAN: Google Hack Traced to Schools in China
• Nearly a Month After Debut, Google’s “New” Approach to China Still a Lot Like the Old One
• Google CEO: Ask Not What Google Can Do for China–Ask What China Can Do for Google
• China on “Google Farce”: Our Internet Is Open
• China to Google: No Worries, We Were Planning to Clone Those Android Phones Anyway
• U.S. State Department to Complain to China About Google Hack. Not That China’s Going to Listen.
• Microsoft: “Don’t Be Evil” Is Google’s Motto, Not Ours
• What’s the Chinese Word for Bing? Google Threatens to Leave China.

A thankless task given that China’s unwavering stance on Internet censorship was reiterated today by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang. “Google’s statement from January 12 is groundless, and we are firmly opposed to it,” Qin told reporters. “China administers its Internet according to law, and this position will not change.”

As I said, a thankless task. Increasingly, it seems that Google (GOOG) is going to make good on its more-than-a-month-old threat to shut down operations in China rather than continue to filter search results in the country. Unless the company has reconsidered. As I wrote last week:

China is the world’s largest Internet market. But in order to operate in China, foreign businesses must abide by laws restricting Internet content, and Google has said publicly that it will no longer do so….“We are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn…”

If that’s truly the case…why are censored results still appearing on Google.cn? Is the moral high ground the company claimed a month ago proving just a bit too high?

PREVIOUSLY:

• Chinese Schools Tied to Attacks on Google? Where’d You Read That, Mad Magazine?
• World War WAN: Google Hack Traced to Schools in China
• Nearly a Month After Debut, Google’s “New” Approach to China Still a Lot Like the Old One
• Google CEO: Ask Not What Google Can Do for China–Ask What China Can Do for Google
• China on “Google Farce”: Our Internet Is Open
• China to Google: No Worries, We Were Planning to Clone Those Android Phones Anyway
• U.S. State Department to Complain to China About Google Hack. Not That China’s Going to Listen.
• Microsoft: “Don’t Be Evil” Is Google’s Motto, Not Ours
• What’s the Chinese Word for Bing? Google Threatens to Leave 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.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Clinton Calls on China to Probe Google Hack
• China to Google: No Worries, We Were Planning to Clone Those Android Phones Anyway
• U.S. State Department to Complain to China About Google Hack. Not That China’s Going to Listen.
• Microsoft: “Don’t Be Evil” Is Google’s Motto, Not Ours
• China’s “New Approach” to Google: Bai-Bai
• What’s the Chinese Word for Bing? Google Threatens to Leave China.

“The launch we have been working on with China Unicom has been postponed,” a Google spokesperson explained.

The company offered no reason for the postponement, though it is obviously related to new uncertainties around its presence in China. Sources close to Google (GOOG) say the company simply felt it would be “irresponsible” to launch the phones in China at this time.

Google says it plans to hold meetings with Chinese authorities in “coming days,” though they’re not likely to be easy-going given recent messages from Beijing. This morning, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman again stressed that foreign companies doing business in China must respect Chinese laws and regulations, adding, “Google is of course no exception.”

“According to complaints from many residents, Google’s English language search engine has spread large amounts of vulgar content that is lascivious and pornographic, seriously violating China’s relevant laws and regulations,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regularly scheduled news conference. “I’d like to stress that google.com, as an Internet enterprise providing services in China, should earnestly abide by Chinese laws and regulations.”

The disruption of Google (GOOG) services follows a widely criticized mandate from Beijing requiring all computers sold in the country to include Green Dam, an application designed to prevent citizens from viewing “offensive” content, which in the Chinese government’s case includes all manner of material. From a report by the Open Net Initiative, an academic consortium dedicated to the study of censorship and surveillance:

The version of the Green Dam software that we tested, when operating under its default settings, is far more intrusive than any other content control software we have reviewed. Not only does it block access to a wide range of web sites based on keywords and image processing, including porn, gaming, gay content, religious sites and political themes, it actively monitors individual computer behavior, such that a wide range of programs including word processing and email can be suddenly terminated if content algorithm detects inappropriate speech. The program installs components deep into the kernel of the computer operating system in order to enable this application layer monitoring. The operation of the software is highly unpredictable and disrupts computer activity far beyond the blocking of websites.

…The deeply intrusive nature of the software opens up several possibilities for use other than filtering material harmful to minors. With minor changes introduced through the auto-update feature, the architecture could be used for monitoring personal communications and Internet browsing behavior. Log files are currently recorded locally on the machine, including events and keywords that trigger filtering. The auto-update feature can used to change the scope and targeting of filtering without any notification to users.

As Google (GOOG) notes, there’s no formal explanation yet for the block, though it may be in response to a seven-minute video posted to YouTube last week showing Chinese soldiers brutally beating Tibetans last March after the riots in Lhasa. China, after all, isn’t renowned for its tolerance of free expression or dissident speech. Remember, animated beat cops patrol the nation’s 13 top portals, warning citizens away from material the ruling Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening.

Asked to comment on the block, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang claimed Beijing was unaware of it. “Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the Internet. In fact it is just the opposite,” he told reporters. “China’s Internet is open enough, but also needs to be regulated by law in order to prevent the spread of harmful information and for national security.”