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China will lose out if Google quits: state paper

BEIJING - China will lose out if Google makes good on a threat to quit the country over cyberattacks and censorship, a state newspaper warned Thursday, saying people had the right to a free flow of information.

“Should the world’s most populous nation fail to provide a foothold to the world’s top search engine, it would imply a setback to China and serious loss to China’s Net culture,” said the English-language Global Times, run by the Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily.

It said if the US Internet giant pulled out of the country with the world’s largest online population at 360 million, it would be “an incalculable loss to its long-term commitment to innovation” as well as a loss of future business.

Google vowed Tuesday to stop bowing to Chinese Internet censors and risk banishment from the lucrative market to protest “highly sophisticated” cyberattacks aimed at Chinese human rights activists.

“The information highway demands not only safe driving but also free flow of traffic. And, in the interests of the majority’s right to know, free flow of information should take precedence in a civil society,” the Global Times said.

“Google and China going their separate ways would hurt both sides.”

China has said it was seeking more information about the announcement. Requests for comment from the foreign, commerce and information technology ministries were not immediately answered.

The Global Times — which splashed the story on its front page, as did the state-run China Daily — said while censorship was justified in a “transitional society” like China to maintain social stability, some limits were needed.

“The government must face up to the challenge of where and how to put the checkpoints on the (information) highway,” it said.