China today retaliated against US criticism of Beijing's controls over the internet, saying Washington's push against online censorship could harm relations between the two big powers.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton's speech against internet censorship yesterday raised contention with Beijing over cyber policy, which flared after Google last week warned it could pull out of China over hacking and restrictions.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said the US criticisms could hurt ties between the two nations - the world's biggest and third biggest economies - already frayed over trade imbalances, currency values and US weapons sales to Taiwan.
"The US has criticised China's policies to administer the Internet and insinuated that China restricts Internet freedom," said Mr Ma, in a statement carried on the foreign ministry's website. "This runs contrary to the facts and is harmful to China-US relations.
"We urge the United States to respect the facts and cease using so-called Internet freedom to make groundless accusations against China," Mr Ma said without mentioning Mrs Clinton by name.
But the spokesman also indicated that his government did not want to see the dispute overwhelm cooperation with the Obama administration, which has sought Beijing's backing on economic policy and diplomatic standoffs, such as Iran and North Korea.
Mr Ma said each side should "appropriately handle rifts and sensitive issues, protecting the healthy and stable development of China-US relations".
Mrs Clinton's speech criticised the cyber policies of China and Iran, among others, and demanded Beijing investigate complaints by Google, the world's biggest search engine operator, about hacking and censorship.
"A new information curtain is descending across much of the world," said Ms Clinton, calling growing Internet curbs the present-day equivalent of the Berlin Wall that contravene international commitments to free expression.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked in China, which uses a filtering "firewall" to prevent Internet users from seeing overseas websites with content anathema to the Communist Party.
Reuters