Google at center of attack on 33 US websites in China

The biggest news this week was the ‘conflict’ that arose between Google Inc. and the Chinese government.

The story seemed simple enough, to begin with, when it was revealed that Chinese hackers stole valuable corporate secrets from its computer systems, but it then seemed to evolve in a disturbing direction when it emerged that it was part of a broad, sophisticated attack on at least 33 other firms too, including Juniper Networks, Adobe, Yahoo, Symantec, Dow and Northrop Grumman.

Immediately, the issue started to look like an international relations crisis, with Google at the center of it and the US government being forced to to tackle this matter with the Chinese government.

A fall-out began and Google threatened to pull out of China, where it has a large office, and said it would stop filtering Internet searches on its site in China.

Such a serious response comes with considerable business ramifications for Google and touches on very sensitive political issues such as human rights and cyber-espionage. The White House says it supports such moves, but it could undermine US-China relations.

The US government has responded by saying that it addresses cyberattacks separately from diplomatic relations with China and any other country, but also said that such separation is becoming more difficult in light of these recent events.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Chinese law "proscribes any form of hacking activity" and that "China's Internet is open and the Chinese government encourages development of the Internet."

But in a separate statement, the government said it should continue its policy of keeping certain types of information off the Web in China. Simply, Goolge response has whipped up a storm.

Surely now, it is clear to everyone that information flow on the Internet and related-cyberattacks are issues that need to be dealt with, and part of the world’s ‘growing pains’ in the Internet age. It’s a wonder this did not happen sooner. I believe that the way this crisis evolves and how it’s handled will create a whole new area of “Internet politics’ this century.

zanasser@gmail.com