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Chinese leaders ordered hacking on
Google, US diplomatic cable shows
SEEING RED:In another cable, a member of the Politburo
demanded action against Google after finding criticism of him after typing his
name into the search engine
AP, BEIJING
Sources told US diplomats that hacking attacks against Google were ordered by
China’s top ruling body and a senior leader demanded action after finding search
results critical of him, leaked US government cables show.
One memo sent by the US embassy in Beijing to Washington said a “well-placed
contact’’ told diplomats the Chinese government coordinated the attacks late
last year on Google Inc under the direction of the Politburo Standing Committee,
the apex of Chinese Communist Party power.
The details of the memos, known in diplomatic parlance as cables, could not be
verified. Chinese government departments either refused to comment or could not
be reached. If true, the cables show the political pressures that were facing
Google when it decided to close its China-based search engine in March.
The cable about the hacking attacks against Google, which was classified as
secret by US Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Goldberg, was released by WikiLeaks
to the New York Times and the Guardian newspapers.
The New York Times said the cable, dated early this year, quoted the contact as
saying that propaganda chief Li Changchun (李長春), the fifth-ranked official in
the country, and top security official Zhou Yongkang (周永康) oversaw the hacking
of Google. Both men are members of the Politburo.
It said that it is unclear if Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) were aware of these reported actions before Google went
public about the attacks in January.
The Times, however, said doubts about the allegation have arisen after the
newspaper interviewed the person cited in the cable, who denied knowing who
directed the hacking attacks on Google. The Times did not identify the person it
interviewed.
Another source said in that cable he believed an official on the top political
body was “working actively with Chinese Internet search engine Baidu (百度)
against Google’s interests in China.”
Google’s relations with Beijing have been tense since the US-based search giant
said in January it no longer wanted to cooperate with Chinese Web filtering
following computer hacking attacks on Google’s computer code and efforts to
break into the e-mail accounts of human rights activists. Google closed its
China-based search engine on March 22 and began routing users to its unfiltered
Hong Kong site.
Google’s spokeswoman in Tokyo, Jessica Powell, said the company had no comment
on the cables released by WikiLeaks, and on the hacking attacks, referred to a
January statement that said it had evidence that the attack came from China.
Google did not release any details then.
A man who answered the phone at the spokesperson’s office of the Chinese
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said no one was around to
comment yesterday. Calls to the Chinese State Council Information Office and the
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs rang unanswered.
A separate cable released by WikiLeaks showed a Politburo member demanded action
against Google after looking for his own name on the search engine and finding
criticism of him.
The cable from May 18 last year cable did not identify the leader, but the New
York Times reported it was Li.
The cable classified as confidential cited a source as saying the Chinese
official had realized that Google’s worldwide site is uncensored, capable of
Chinese language searches and search results, and that there is a link from the
home page of its China site, google.cn, to google.com.
The official “allegedly entered his own name and found results critical of him”
and asked three government ministries to write a report about Google and “demand
that the company ceases its ‘illegal activities,’ which include linking to
google.com,” the cable said.
The cable said US officials could neither confirm nor deny the details given by
the source about the Chinese leadership’s action.
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