When Google threatened to pull out of China last month after hacker attacks on its networks, the
Obama administration announced with some fanfare that it would lodge an official protest with Beijing.
However, talk about the diplomatic protest ceased. U.S. officials raised the issue with the
Chinese in private, they said, but have never delivered the written diplomatic message. This
careful de-escalation was a prominent example of the way in which the two countries have
quietly moved to limit the damage from a series of noisy conflicts this year.
Collisions over Taiwan, Tibet, Iran, Internet freedom and other issues have led to angry words
and canceled meetings. Nonetheless, the leaders of the two countries appear intent on managing
the clashes in hopes of maintaining the stability of a relationship each side sees as essential for
economic as well as political reasons.
For instance, on the Google issue, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a furious reaction from Beijing on Jan. 21 when, in a speech on Internet freedom, she suggested in Cold War overtones that the Chinese and a few like-minded nations were erecting a new wall around their populations. U.S. officials later said the speech wasn't a response to the Google furor and had long been planned. The address was rewritten repeatedly to tone down sections that the Chinese might find provocative, officials said. The Chinese, too, sought to limit the fallout from the Internet issue. At first, Beijing denounced Clinton's speech as "information imperialism." And within days, China's foreign minister sought to portray the issue as a commercial one that could be negotiated between the two sides. Clinton, in an appearance after her meeting with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in London, acknowledged that there were several views on how actively the Chinese control their Internet. "Different people have . . . different impressions," she said. proliferation. (Source: Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, Feb 15, 2010).