In a retaliatory move against Google, and in defense of China’s censorship of Web content, an unnamed spokesperson for China’s State Council Information Office recently emphasized the government’s right to punish citizens who use the Internet for the purpose of confronting Communist Party power and ethnic policies.

Reacting to Google’s plans to withdraw from China after the reported cyberattacks from within the country, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent speech on Internet freedom, the spokesman said that China “bans using the Internet to subvert state power and wreck national unity, to incite ethnic hatred and division, to promote cults and to distribute content that is pornographic, salacious, violent or terrorist.”

Adding that China has “ample legal basis” for restricting harmful content, the spokesman - whose comments were issued on the Chinese government’s official website - said that China’s Internet policy has nothing to do with the “so-called restriction of Internet freedom.”

Moreover, a Sunday article in the People’s Daily newspaper also said that the US is seeking to control the Internet, and it deems only that information as ‘free information’ which it itself controls.

The clearly defensive and retaliatory statements by China, about its Internet curbs, are a clear indication that the Chinese authorities would not bow down to either Google or the US on the issue of its Web censorship policy.