The tension’s definitely ratcheting up as Google and China trade accusations and denials over who’s responsible for weeks of sluggish Gmail service.

Google recently claimed no foul and blamed China for turning the country’s version of Gmail into a slideshow. The company then took it one further, suggesting the slowdown was “a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail” (though Google didn’t offer technical evidence to illustrate the problem).

As the slowdown continues to morph into an “all but” shutdown, it’s China’s turn to deny. Beijing officially rejected Google’s claims yesterday, its Foreign Ministry spokesperson calling the accusations “unacceptable” at a routine news conference, though that’s all she said.

The Guardian now reports that the Chinese ministry of commerce as well as the ministry of industry and information technology aren’t responding to faxed questions. Government officials haven’t so much as acknowledged there’s a problem, and Beijing appears to have nothing further to say on the matter.

Some speculate China’s apparent Internet clampdown stems from anonymous calls for a “jasmine revolution” to parallel recent Middle East uprisings. If true, it seems Beijing believes it can mitigate or outright thwart online-coordinated dissent by holding a finger over the information spigot, while pointing another at Google.

It certainly wouldn’t be unprecedented. China already has a troubled history with Google, not to mention the online community at large. In 2005, the Guardian reported China’s Internet Police Force numbered upwards of 30,000. How those 30,000 manage to preside over the Internet activities of some 250 million Chinese Internet-connected is anyone’s guess, but technology called “the Great Firewall” (the “Golden Shield Project” in China) routinely blocks the IP addresses of anything Beijing frowns on, from consumer sites like YouTube and Blogspot to news sources like BBC News and Voice of America.

The idea that China’s citizenry might some day knock the legs out from under Beijing’s techno-oligarchy isn’t unthinkable. While China’s certainly shown the world it’s possible to regulate an inherently anarchical system (the Internet), short of full-scale military rule, its grip has an inevitable expiry date. If Google’s allegations about Beijing’s deceit are true, let’s hope the rest of the populace moves us closer to it.

The Chinese government, of course, may decide to block this new version of Google, as it does many other uncensored sources of information. If it does, we’ll know about it: Google has a new page up that shows the status of its various services on the mainland.

At the moment, Web search, image search, news, ads, and Gmail are up; YouTube, Sites, and Blogger are down; and Docs, Picasa, and Groups are partially blocked:

Whatever happens next, I’m glad that Google made good on its January promise. Tech companies like to explain their willingness to censor in China by saying that they follow the laws of the countries they do business in. Google says that its new uncensored engine is legal in China–wonder if Microsoft, Yahoo, or any other American company that currently offers censored services there will launch something similar?

Last month, Google declared that it has discovered cyberattacks on its systems targeting Chinese humans rights workers, and made a decision to terminate the censored version of Google in China as a response.

Within a matter of days, U.S/ Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton demanded that China investigate Google’s claims, and called for an Internet free of censorship. (Disclosure: I donated to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and was an active volunteer)

Both countries should take heed to the call for freedom, Moglen says. The only difference between spying in the U.S and spying in China is that China’s is centralized through the government, and the U.S has the capitalist kind, he said.

“We won’t win any freedom of the Internet discussion carrying Facebook on our backs,” Moglen quipped.

Moglen, who is a well-known figure in the free software movement, is concerned about the impact that the Internet’s predominant client/server architecture has on privacy due to the architecture’s potential for abuse.

Americans, he said, live with a microphone under every bush, a Webcam in every tree, and “a data miner under your feet.” Facebook and other cloud services such as Gmail spy on their users, he claims.

Data is aggregated about things you don’t want people to know, Moglen said. People would be “creeped out” at the how somple it is to un-anonymize data, he added. “Commercial data sources can be used to assemble maps of people’s lives.”

That is technically true, but I do not have to jump through hoops to watch YouTube uncensored. The information that is collected about me online is probably more pervasive than I know, but the spying doesn’t have an immediate effect upon my freedom. Perhaps that makes it easier to take my privacy for granted.

You’ve got to decide: Do you want to obey the laws of the countries you’re in, or not? If not, you may not end up doing business there…

[snip]

The Chinese efforts to censor the Internet have been very limited. It’s easy to go around it, and so I think keeping the Internet thriving there is very important.

You can certainly make the case that by staying in China, U.S. Internet businesses are more likely to bring about greater freedom of expression than if they refuse to abide by censorship laws and abandon the country. And Gates is right that the Great Firewall of China is easy to circumvent. But I’ve used the Internet in China–as, surely, has Bill Gates–and I wouldn’t call the censorship “very limited…”

China: foreigners welcome, censorship mandatory.

Looks like Yahoo was hacked.

Mossberg reviews wireless Sony e-reader.

Haiti imagery in Google Earth.

Facebook-using crook nabbed, finally.

Are digital music prices fixed?

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