China warns Google against dropping censorship (Roundup)

Mar 12, 2010, 12:36 GMT

Beijing - China on Friday warned US internet giant Google Inc that it must 'bear the consequence' if it stops censoring search results in China.

'I hope Google can abide by China's laws and regulations,' Li Yizhong, the minister of industry and information technology, said when asked about Google's threat to stop censorship.

'It is irresponsible and unfriendly if Google insists in doing something that goes against China's laws and regulations,' Li said, adding that the company would 'have to bear the consequence' of any breach of Chinese internet regulations.

Li did not say if his government was negotiating with Google over its operations in China.

'If Google decides to stay in China, we welcome it and it will help boost the development of the country's internet industry,' he said.

'If it decides to quit, we will follow our procedures,' he said, adding that Google's withdrawal would have little influence on China's internet market.

Last week, Li appeared to suggest that Chinese officials were in talks with Google over the company's plan to review its operations in China.

But his deputy, Miao Wei, later said his ministry had 'never received a request from Google for any negotiations and neither have we had any direct contact with them.'

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal quoted Google chief executive Eric Schmidt as saying the company was in 'active negotiations' with the Chinese government.

Schmidt declined to disclose the state of the negotiations but said the company was nearing a conclusion in the talks and that 'something will happen soon,' the newspaper reported.

Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, announced in January that the company planned to stop self-censoring its Chinese search engine even if that meant abandoning China's market.

Drummond said Google took the unprecedented step after discovering 'a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China.'

In Paris on Thursday, Drummond said the world had reached a 'critical point' in the future of the internet.

'All of us have a choice. We can allow repressive policies to take flight and spread across the globe, or we can work together against such challenges and uphold the fundamental human right to free expression,' he said.

Drummond was speaking at the award of the first Netizen Prize by the Paris-based rights group Reporters Without Borders, a Google statement said.

The prize was awarded to the Iranian creators of the Change for Equality website to fight discrimination against women.

Google said it planned to 'highlight the fight for internet freedom' on Friday by marking Reporters Without Borders' World Day Against Cyber Censorship on YouTube.