China official newspaper slams Clinton Internet speech, denounces ‘information imperialism’

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China newspaper slams Clinton Internet speech

BEIJING — An official Chinese newspaper dished out scathing criticism Friday of a call by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for China and other nations to lift their restrictions on the Internet, denouncing it as “information imperialism.”

Clinton’s speech Thursday in Washington elevated Internet freedom as a major facet of the U.S. human rights agenda as never before.

She urged China to investigate cyber intrusions that led search engine Google to threaten to pull out of the country — and challenged Beijing to openly publish its findings.

On Friday, the Global Times denounced what it called a U.S. campaign to impose its values and denigrate other cultures, labeling it “information imperialism.”

Information from the West comes “loaded with aggressive rhetoric against those countries that do not follow their lead,” said the English-language paper, published by the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily as part of a government-sponsored campaign to develop international media and influence opinion about China overseas.

“Unlike advanced Western countries, Chinese society is still vulnerable to the effect of multifarious information flowing in, especially when it is for creating disorder,” the newspaper said. It offered no examples.

Google said on Jan. 12 that it would remain in China only if the government relented on rules requiring the censorship of content the Communist Party considers subversive. The ultimatum came after Google said it had uncovered a computer attack that tried to plunder its software coding and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists protesting Chinese policies.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said Thursday that the company hoped to find a way to maintain a presence in China but intended to stop censoring search results within “a reasonably short time.”

U.S. State Department officials have said they intend to lodge a formal complaint with Chinese officials soon over the Google matter.

China’s Foreign Ministry issued no immediate response to Clinton’s speech.

However, on Thursday, Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying the Google case “should not be linked with relations between the two governments and countries; otherwise, it’s an over-interpretation.”

The Xinhua report did not mention censorship, instead referring to Google’s “disagreements with government policies.”

China promotes the use of the Internet for commerce, but heavily censors content it deems pornographic, anti-social or politically subversive. Following ethnic rioting in Xinjiang last summer, authorities cut off public Web access entirely to the western region, portions of which they have only recently begun restoring.

U.S. diplomats in China have reached out to bloggers as a method of skirting Beijing’s Internet controls, sometimes called the “Great Firewall of China.”

On Friday, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou were hosting Internet-streamed discussions with members of the blogging community to “share insights and answer questions about Clinton’s speech,” the embassy said.

Control over the Internet is considered a crucial matter of state security in China, and Beijing is not expected to offer any concessions to the U.S.

However, one Chinese scholar said it was understandable that Clinton would make such comments based on the long-standing U.S. commitment to improving human rights abroad.

“Both sides should prevent allowing the issue to damage relations,” said Zhu Feng, of Peking University’s School of International Studies.

“China will continue its low-key approach and handle the Google issue in a pragmatic way,” Zhu said.