Communist Party Congress is an event of greatest political significance in China. The 18th Party Congress, comprising of the notable leaders and members of the Communist Party has just begun. Apparently, in order to keep it under wraps, China has blocked access to all Google services.
Chinese government had earlier taken a number of measures which hint that it is serious in nabbing any negative opinions towards the event. For instance, any dissenting books towards the party or its policies have been removed from the bookstores.
The government has a record of trying to fend off any criticism towards the Congress which is held once a decade. The reason is because the future course of the Communist Party as well as the Chinese government depends upon this event.
On Friday evening, Google services apparently became inaccessible in the country. Google was able to confirm it when traffic to its services dropped to near zero from China. Of course, the Chinese government didn’t officially announce it but since there are no technical glitches on the end of Google, the case is that of blanket censorship.
According to a Google spokesperson, “We’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end.” Google has been a victim of censorship and blockage in China in the past too. Moreover, the company has also suffered sophisticated hack attacks from within the country.
Right now, Google is not sure that whether its services have been blocked by the government or is this the result of a hacking attempt. However, all hints point to the former and we can expect access to Google services resume in China once the Party Congress gets over.
Source: NYT
[ttjad keyword=”best-selling-gadget”]
