China came out swinging against renewed allegations that it hacked Gmail accounts belonging to US companies, US officials, and Chinese political activists. Instead, it accused Google of lying about being hacked and playing political games.

An editorial from the Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper charged that Google is “thickly tainted with political colors” and “taking advantage and provoking new Sino-American Internet security disputes with sinister intentions.”

It accused Google of being “a political tool for slandering other countries” and warned that it would be “sacrificed by politics” and “discarded by the market” if it continues to “engulf itself in the international political war as a tool for political gaming.”

Never mind that the editorial was filled with fancy but vague words that don’t have any substance. That China vehemently denied accusations against it and counter-accused the accusing party shouldn’t be surprising.

After all, this is the same government that denies it’s manipulating its currency to boost exports. Or that it’s suppressing free speech by censoring the internet. Or that it brutally cracked down on student protestors in 1989 at Tiananmen Square.

The Chinese government is notoriously slow in admitting any of its mistakes and wrongdoing, especially if it involves the current regime. It is still not admitting the crackdown of protestors in 1989. In fact, some of them are still jailed more than 20 years after the fact.

If the Chinese government won’t admit its guilt, the only way is to either discover the evidence or use reasoning. Reasoning suggests that they’re behind the attacks.

Assuming Google didn’t lie about being hacked – it has no logical incentive to do so (in fact, it has the financial incentive to please the Chinese government and resume its mainland China operations) – no one but the Chinese government would want information on the email accounts of Chinese political dissidents.

China Google