Taipei, Jan. 14 (CNA) The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) , Taiwan's top China policy authority, has urged China to respect press and Internet freedom in the wake of Internet search engine giant Google's possible pullout from China, an MAC spokesman said Thursday.
"There is still a lot of room for improvement for China over its press and Internet freedom. The MAC would like to urge China to respect freedom of the Internet and journalism, " said MAC Vice Chairman Liu Te-hsun.
China must be feeling the heat from the international community over the issue as well, Liu said one day after Google threatened to shut down Google.cn and quit China, citing cyber attacks and hackers' access to some human rights activists' e-mail accounts.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded an explanation from Beijing.
Media exchanges between Taiwan and China have been progressing smoothly recently, but the exchanges should base on the respect for press freedom and the free flow of information, Liu said.
With its "Great Fire Wall" technology, China imposes Internet censorship on search results and also demands that foreign Internet companies such as Google and Microsoft filter sensitive topics and keywords in search results.
China still blocks some Taiwanese Web sites and international news media, although it relaxed its Internet blockage briefly during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.