Google Inc will not be treated as an exception to China's demand that foreign companies obey its laws, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, a week after the world's largest search engine warned that it could pull out of China.
Google said last week that it and other companies were targets of sophisticated cyber-spying from China that also went after Chinese dissidents. It also said it no longer wants to censor its Chinese google.cn search site and wants talks with Beijing about offering a legal, unfiltered Chinese site.
The Internet dispute could stoke tensions between China and the United States, already at odds over the value of the Chinese yuan, trade quarrels, US arms sales to Taiwan, and climate change policy.
Chinese officials have so far publicly fended off Google's complaints and not openly flagged any talks with the world's biggest Internet search company, which opened its Chinese-language search site in 2006.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu pressed the company a little more on Tuesday in comments that suggested scant room for giving way to Google's demands.
"Foreign firms in China should respect China's laws and regulations, and respect China's public customs and traditions, and assume the corresponding social responsibilities, and of course Google is no exception," Ma told a regular briefing.
Ma did not mention censorship as being among those responsibilities, but other Chinese officials have.
Until now, the foreign ministry has avoided mentioning Google's name in comments on the dispute that has also drawn Washington into demanding an explanation from Beijing.
But Ma, like other Chinese officials, avoided hitting back directly at the US.
When asked again about Google's complaint that it had been hacked from within China, Ma said Chinese companies have also been hacked.
"China is the biggest victim of hacking," Ma said, adding that eight out of 10 personal computers in China connected to the Internet had been hacked. This figure, apparently, included many computers infected with viruses spread online.
Other countries are also being drawn into the dispute. India's outgoing national security adviser MK Narayanan told the The Times of London on Tuesday that his offices and other Indian government offices had been the target of hacker attacks originating from China on December 15, coinciding with attacks on Google and the other firms.
"There is no basis at all for this claim," Ma said.
Indian commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma declined to comment on the report. He said he had not brought up the issue with China's commerce minister when they met in Beijing on Tuesday.
