Thu, March 11, 2010
BEIJING, March 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese lawmakers, advisors and experts Thursday urged Google to abide by local laws and regulations, saying the online search giant should be no exception in China's current Internet clean-up campaign.
The comments came a day after Google said it was firm in the decision to "stop censoring our search results for China" and that it was "prepared" to leave the country if that was the option.
Chen Zhonglin, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, told Xinhua that all countries had the right to scrutinize contents on the Internet to protect the interests of the state and its citizens.
Restrictions on the Internet may be different among countries, but the specifics should be decided by a country itself, said Chen, also dean of the Law School of Chongqing University, who was in Beijing for the NPC's annual session.
"From a legal point of view, Google, as a search engine, should be responsible for its search results," he said.
Nicole Wong, Google's vice president, urged the U.S. Congress Wednesday in a hearing to put pressure on countries scrutinizing Internet contents. She previously said China's scrutiny into the Internet was against the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Wong said a total of 25 governments censored Google's search results in the past few years.
Zheng Zhihai, deputy director and secretary general of the China Society of WTO Studies, said checking Internet contents was a right the WTO granted to its members.
According to the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services, measures that are universally applicable to service providers, such as Internet content scrutiny, can be adopted as long as they are reasonable, objective and impartial, Zheng said.
Zheng said the Chinese government supervised both domestic and foreign Internet companies without discrimination, which was not a breach of the "national treatment" principle.
China's supervision over the Internet was not for the sake of restricting trade, but out of the considerations of maintaining a healthy, harmonious online environment, protecting the minors, and preventing conducts that may endanger state security, he added.
In December, China launched a new round of crackdown on spreading pornographic contents through the Internet or mobile WAP sites to "purify the social environment."
In February, a judicial interpretation was issued, which further clarified that production, replication, publication, sale and spread of obscene electronic information involving minors aged under 14 via Internet or mobile WAP sites would be recognized as a crime.
Political advisor Su Rong said the country's Internet clean-up campaign was "very timely and necessary" as the flow of inappropriate information would have negative impacts on society.
Google could not be an exception in this case because if it could, Chinese laws would "lose its justice and impartiality," said Su, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the top political advisory body.
Feng Fei, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said China was not alone in the world in exercising rights of Internet supervision.
"China's supervision is not targeted at Google or any other foreign company," Feng said. "Actually, whether Google leaves or not, there will be little impact on China."
