Google claimed last week that China was behind a massive phishing hack of Gmail accounts that included U.S. government officials, human rights activists and journalists. China has fired back at the search giant, warning Google to stay away from being a political tool.
The People’s Daily, an official Chinese newspaper, says Google; “should not become overly embroiled in international political struggle, playing the role of a tool for political contention,” according to Reuters. Then came the warning: “For when the international winds shift direction, it may become sacrificed to politics and will be spurned by the marketplace.”
The supposed hack last week came from Jinan, China, according to Google. Mountain View and Bejing have had icy relationships in the last year or so. Outside of censorship and Google’s “partial” pull out of China, Gmail has been a point of contention between the two companies this year as well.
Google accused China of a sophisticated hack against Gmail in March that Google said was designed to look like an internal issue with Google’s Gmail servers. The attempts in March were thought to be a response by China to the “Jasmine Revolution” that was tied to Internet involvement in the uprisings in the Middle East.
The People’s Daily said that Google is “deliberately pandering to negative Western perceptions of China, and strongly hinting that the hacking attacks were the work of the Chinese government,” according to Reuters.
Pandering or not, Chinese media officials seem to think it is an inevitability that the “international winds” will shift, presumably in the favor of China. The allusion is that whatever companies anger China now will be brought to slaughter when/if China controls the international economy. Google has ceded search market share in the largest Internet market in the world to Baidu after Google censorship disagreement with China in 2010.
