Chinese experts blast Google for "politicizing" trade rules

Beijing, June 19 (ANI): Chinese trade and Internet experts have criticized Google's move to declare the country's Internet restrictions a trade barrier, saying it was another move by the Internet search engine to politicize itself.

Earlier this month, a top Google executive had said that his company was working with U.S. and European officials to build a case to take to the World Trade Organization that would argue "Internet censorship" acted as a trade barrier.

However, Professor Zheng Yongnian, Director of the East Asia Institute of the National University of Singapore, said that though Google's attempt to link Internet regulation with trade barriers was on the surface an economic issue, but in essence, it challenged China's domestic affairs.

Zheng also said that Google was "politicizing" itself again after blaming China for the alleged hacker attack in January, Xinhua news agency reports.

Tu Xinquan, Vice President of the WTO Research Center of Beijing's University of International Business and Economics, said: "China's Internet administration is not a system of trade policies; it is domestic policies formulated based on China's domestic laws and regulations. Even the WTO cannot intervene in this regard." (ANI)