In the wake of a recent speech by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemning countries that censor the internet and engage in hacking, China has lobbed a return volley and accused the United States of hypocrisy and initiating cyberwarfare against Iran.

An editorial in the People's Daily – the primary mouthpiece for China's Communist Party – accused the United States of doublespeak and of using "online warfare" to instigate violent unrest in Iran with Twitter and YouTube following that country's national elections in June.

"We're afraid that in the eyes of American politicians, only information controlled by America is free information, only news acknowledged by America is free news, only speech approved by America is free speech, and only information flow that suits American interests is free information flow," said the Sunday editorial, according to the Guardian newspaper.

The editorial was taking aim at a speech by Clinton last Thursday in which she said that access to information, and the internet, is a basic human right. She said that countries around the world were erecting virtual walls in place of the physical walls that generally characterize oppressive regimes.

Clinton urged U.S. media companies to challenge foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance.

Clinton did not mention China specifically but also said that "Countries or individuals that engage in cyberattacks should face consequences and international condemnation."

She was speaking in the wake of an announcement from Google that it had decided to stop censoring search results on its Chinese-language search engine and may vacate China altogether after discovering that it, and nearly three dozen other companies, had been the target of a coordinated hack attack that originated in China.

The People's Daily, however, didn't take the speech calmly.

"Behind what America calls free speech is naked political scheming. How did the unrest after the Iranian election come about?" said the paper. "It was because online warfare launched by America, via YouTube video and Twitter microblogging, spread rumours, created splits, stirred up and sowed discord between the followers of conservative reformist factions."

Last June, the U.S. State Department asked Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance that would have increased its server capacity but also would have closed down the system for a short time during the daytime hours in Iran, preventing Iranian protestors from using the social-networking service to organize and chronicle a government crackdown.

"When we worked with our network provider yesterday to reschedule this planned maintenance, we did so because events in Iran were tied directly to the growing significance of Twitter as an important communication and information network," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone disclosed in a blog post at the time. "It made sense for Twitter and for NTT America to keep services active during this highly visible global event."

Iranian voters took to the streets to protest the election between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and defeated challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, accusing the government of having rigged the election. The unrest resulted in unknown numbers of deaths and arrests. Iranian protestors used numerous social networking services to communicate with others inside and outside the country about the events in their country.

A State Department spokesman at the time denied that the U.S. was intruding on Iran's domestic affairs.

"This is about giving their voices a chance to be heard. One of the ways that their voices are heard are through new media," spokesman Ian Kelly told Reuters.

China began blocking YouTube last March in anticipation of protests on the anniversary of uprisings in Tibet. It also began blocking Twitter in June, prior to the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising. Reuters reports that Facebook has also been down in the country since July.

Photo courtesy U.S. State Department

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