China warns Google to obey or 'pay the consequences'

Google V China: round 2
Google V China: round 2

Google has been warned by China that it must follow the country's censorship rules or "pay the consequences".

The chilling message was given by Li Yizhong, Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology, who was speaking at China's legislation session.

Giving the reasons why China needs strict censoring laws, he explained: "We need to preserve our nation's interest, our people's interest, we cannot be relaxed with any information that will cause harm to the stability of our society, to our system, and to the health of our under-age young people."

Abide and respect

When it comes to Google, Yizhong said that whether the company disband from China was "up to them" but if it did continue, then the country's laws must be obeyed.

"I hope that Google will abide and respect the Chinese government's laws and regulations," he noted.

"But, if you betray Chinese laws and regulations... it means that you are unfriendly, irresponsible, and you will have to pay the consequences."

It was back in January that Google announced its unease with China's censorship laws and that it was considering pulling out of the country all together.

Since then, companies like Microsoft have come out saying that they will continue to work in China under its rules, regardless of the outcome between the company and Google.

Via BBC

TOPICS
Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.

Latest in Computing
An AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT made by Sapphire on a table with its retail packaging
Last-minute AMD RX 9070 XT stock rumors are making me hopeful for a much better launch than Nvidia’s RTX 5000 GPUs – with just one snag
Microsoft Store logo on a blurred background
There's finally a fix for an annoying Microsoft Store bug that's older than Windows 11
Google AI Mode
Google previews AI Mode for search, taking on the likes of ChatGPT search and Perplexity
ChatGPT Deep Research
I can get answers from ChatGPT, but Deep Research gives me a whole dissertation I'll almost never need
An AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT made by Sapphire on a table with its retail packaging
Where to buy AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070: these are the best retailers in the US and UK
An Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070
Nvidia confirms that an RTX 5070 Founders Edition is coming... just not on launch day
Latest in News
An AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT made by Sapphire on a table with its retail packaging
Last-minute AMD RX 9070 XT stock rumors are making me hopeful for a much better launch than Nvidia’s RTX 5000 GPUs – with just one snag
eSIM
Global eSIM shipment volume surpasses half a billion units as demand keeps on growing
Samsung Galaxy Buds in white
Samsung may be working on new cheap wireless earbuds – will the Galaxy Buds FE 2 beat Sony's next value earbuds to the punch?
Google Pixel 9 Pro
Your older Pixel phone just got a performance and camera boost thanks to Google's new software update
China
Microsoft says Chinese Silk Typhoon hackers are targeting cloud and IT apps to steal business data
Salesforce Agentforce 2dx
Salesforce gives AI agents the power to be proactive and autonomous like never before