Chinese paper blames Google over Gmail blocking

Internet giant Google’s unwillingness to obey Chinese law is to blame for the shutdown of its hugely popular email service, state-run media said Tuesday after the last easy way to access Gmail was apparently blocked. Gmail, the world’s biggest email service, has been largely inaccessible from within China since the run-up to the 25th anniversary in June of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

China welcomes the company to do business on the prerequisite that it obeys Chinese law; however Google values more its reluctance to be restricted by Chinese law, resulting in conflict.

The Global Times said in an editorial

Previously, users could access the service by using third-party mail applications, rather than the webpage. But Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of Danwei, a Beijing-based firm that tracks Chinese media and the Internet, said those ways of connecting have been barred by the government in recent days. China operates the world’s most extensive and sophisticated Internet censorship system, known as the “Great Firewall”. Foreign websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are routinely blocked and content that the ruling Communist Party deems offensive is often quickly deleted. Google withdrew from China in 2010 after a fallout with Beijing over censorship issues.

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