25 January 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

China denies involvement in Google cyber-attacks

The Chinese government has spoken out to deny any involvement in the recent cyber attacks targeted at Google and other companies, saying that the search giant's claims are "groundless."

A spokesperson of China's ministry of industry and information technology told Xinhua: "The accusation that the Chinese government participated in [any] cyber attack, either in an explicit or inexplicit way, is groundless. We [are] firmly opposed to that."

The spokesperson added: "China's policy on internet safety is transparent and consistent."

In an official blog post on 12 January, Google revealed that the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights supporters had been accessed in a targeted cyber-attack that is believed to have originated in China. Although the Mountain View giant did not explicitly accuse the Chinese government of being involved in the attacks, Google threatened to withdraw from China unless the state agreed to stop restricting free access to information through its search engine.

The state-run newspaper China Daily stated that America's internet strategy was: "to exploit its advantages in internet funds, technology and marketing and export its politics, commerce and culture to other nations for political, commercial and cultural interests of the world's only superpower."

The publication also criticised the US government's stance as hypocritical, claiming that "certain government agencies" in the US had illegally accessed email accounts.

While the situation is not yet resolved, China stated on Tuesday that Google and other international companies had to obey the nation's laws and traditions if they wished to continue to operate in China. This led to Google postponing the launch of two mobile phones in China, and may lead to a full withdrawal from the country's lucrative internet market if the Chinese government refuses to stop censoring search results on the company's Chinese search engine - a scenario that is looking increasingly unlikely.