US to Serve Formal Demarche to China over Google

Obama administration, while observing that China needs to explain about internet freedom, has said that it will serve a formal demarche to the Chinese government over the spat with Google, said reports.

Needless to add, Google has accused China of attempting to ‘limit free speech on the Web’ and threatened to stop cooperating with Chinese internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in China.

“We need to hear now from the Chinese,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was quoted as saying.

“We are anxious to hear from them. I think Google will keep us apprised on their next steps as it relates to China as well,” he said.

While, the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, P J Crowley, was quoted as saying: “We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese Government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days, probably early next week.”

“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,” Crowley said.

Reports said that the State Department official said that the US would continue to talk to China on this issue.

“It touches on things that are very important to us: Internet freedom, network security and human rights,” he was quoted as saying.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said earlier this week that the incident raised serious questions and that the US would continue to seek answers from China.