The state-run newspaper of China made a stern warning to Google today in the wake of Google's announcement that an attack on a number of Gmail accounts came from that country. Reuters reports that the People's Daily newspaper made the warnings in a front page commentary today, saying that, "Google's accusations aimed at China are spurious, have ulterior motives, and bear malign intentions."
Google revealed several days ago that hundreds of its GMail accounts were attacked with the intent to have emails forwarded to other accounts. Google said that the attacks came from China but did not directly name the Chinese government. However, the People's Daily newspaper commentary today said that Google's statements were, "deliberately pandering to negative Western perceptions of China, and strongly hinting that the hacking attacks were the work of the Chinese government."
The commentary also said that Google's remarks about the GMail account could even affect its business in that country, saying, "Google should not become overly embroiled in international political struggle, playing the role of a tool for political contention. For when the international winds shift direction, it may become sacrificed to politics and will be spurned by the marketplace." Google did not comment about the newspaper's commentary.
This is not the first time Google and the Chinese government have had issues. In 2010, the company complained about the government's censorship of Google in China and pulled out of the country partially as a result. Reuters reports that since then Google's search business has lost market share to Baidu, the local China search engine with 450 million users.
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