Hillary creates China kerfuffle over internet freedom speech
Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech on internet freedom in which she argued that it was a critical part of US foreign policy. She called out a few countries by name for restricting their citizens' access the information online. China was one of them. Unsurprisingly, today China expressed its unhappiness with Mrs. Clinton's speech...
Here's video of Mrs. Clinton's speech from yesterday.
The speech gives a new dimension to China's fight with Google. China has been making it out to be a business-only spat, but Clinton seems to have made it not just China vs. Google but China vs. US foreign policy.
Interestingly though, Joshua Keating at FP Passport thinks China's response was overblown and made Clinton look like she was being harder on China than she was:
If China is treating Clinton's speech like a 'thrown gauntlet', what will be the next step for the US? The Obama Administration up to now has been very reserved in its criticisms of China. Will criticism increase?
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"...calling on the United States government “to respect the truth and to stop using the so-called Internet freedom question to level baseless accusations.”
Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a written statement posted Friday afternoon on the ministry’s Web site that the criticism leveled by Mrs. Clinton on Thursday was “harmful to Sino-American relations.”
“The Chinese Internet is open,” he said.
Here's video of Mrs. Clinton's speech from yesterday.
The speech gives a new dimension to China's fight with Google. China has been making it out to be a business-only spat, but Clinton seems to have made it not just China vs. Google but China vs. US foreign policy.
Interestingly though, Joshua Keating at FP Passport thinks China's response was overblown and made Clinton look like she was being harder on China than she was:
It strikes me that Beijing could have issued a statement along the lines of, "Secretary Clinton is right to say that the United States and China have different views on this issue. We welcome her invitation to dialog but ask that the United States respect the sovereignty of our electronic space and unique political context. We are actively engaged in cracking down on criminals and extremists who take refuge in cyberspace."
Acting as if Clinton's temperate remarks amounted to a thrown gauntlet makes it appear to the outside world that they have something to be ashamed of. It doesn't seem like the response of a secure superpower.
If China is treating Clinton's speech like a 'thrown gauntlet', what will be the next step for the US? The Obama Administration up to now has been very reserved in its criticisms of China. Will criticism increase?
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- How people are helping Haiti
- Supreme Court opens doors to corporate money
- China to start watching texts
- Haiti: Challenges to come
- Haiti: Following along in the news
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- tags:
- Internet, China, Information, Hillary Clinton, 12 more
