The U.S. State Department told reporters today that it will deliver a formal statement to the Chinese government in the next few days, denouncing a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” through which the Gmail accounts of Chinese political activists were tapped. Google has already threatened to pull out of China, which would mean closing its offices there and shutting down the google.cn website.
Now, the U.S. government has gotten involved. Reuters reports that an unnamed senior diplomat met with a Chinese diplomat on Thursday. In the next few days, the U.S. will deliver a démarche — a formal diplomatic communication from one country to another — expressing America’s disapproval of the break-ins.
A State Department spokesman said at a press conference this morning, “It will express our concern for this incident and request information from China as to an explanation of how it happened and what they plan to do about it.”
Separately, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Bloomberg that exiting China is “not something we’re thinking about” at Microsoft.
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