Double Team

The U.S. State Department will file a démarche against China over the hacked gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. “A spokesman said the US would demand an explanation in the coming days. Google this week threatened to pull out of China because of what it said were hacking attacks and censorship; Beijing has tried to play down the threat. Another US internet giant, Yahoo, is also reported to have been targeted by hackers in China. ‘We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days,’ said state department spokesperson PJ Crowley. ‘It will express our concern for this incident and request information from China as to an explanation of how it happened and what they plan to do about it.’ In response to Google’s concerns, China has said that foreign internet firms are welcome to do business there ‘according to the law’. Google had stated that cyber-attacks originating in China aimed at rights activists, and increased web censorship, might force it to end its China operations.”