BEIJING — China’s top Internet regulator insisted Friday that Google must obey its laws or “pay the consequences,” giving no sign of a possible compromise in their dispute over censorship and hacking.
“If you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulations, you are unfriendly, you are irresponsible, and you will have to pay the consequences,” Li Yizhong, left, the minister of Industry and Information Technology, said on the sidelines of China’s annual legislature.
Li gave no details of Beijing’s talks with Google Inc. over the search engine’s January announcement that it planned to stop complying with Chinese Internet censorship rules and might close its China-based site. Li said. “If they leave, China’s Internet market is still going to develop.”
China has the world’s most-populous Internet market, with 384 million people online. Google has about 35 percent of the Chinese search market The Associated Press
