Officials in the Obama administration have reported that the President remains “troubled” over the recent alleged attacks on Google from within China. As Google ready themselves to decide whether to withdraw from China, President Obama is said to want “some answers” whilst agreeing that the hackers should “face consequences.”
China has hit out at Hillary Clinton’s, US Secretary of State, criticism of the country’s censorship laws. Ma Zhaoxu, foreign ministry spokesman for China expressed that the US needed to “respect the facts” and end their “groundless accusations.” He added “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.”
The remarks came after Mrs Clinton accused the country of “walling themselves off from the progress of the next century” by censoring the internet. She expressed that private sector had helped make a “principled stand” against internet censorship and called on Chinese authorities to carry out a full investigation into the “highly sophisticated” cyber-attack. Elsewhere Bill Burton, White House spokesman stated that the President backed Mrs Clinton’s words. “As the president has said, he continues to be troubled by the cyber-security breach that Google attributes to China. All we are looking for from China are some answers,” he said.
Whilst China remains a lucrative market for internet companies due to their approximate 350 million users, Google is currently considering whether to pull out of the market. Though they have managed to secure a 35per cent market share of the browser sector, and agreed to censor some subjects from their filters when they first moved into the country, they stated that they will no longer filter out information and if it means they pull out of China, it is a move they are willing to make.
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