Google, Inc., the increasingly all-powerful web presence in everything from web browsers to email, is threatening to close up shop in China.  The reason, according to the company, is that its operations there are under cyber-attacks that are focused upon obtaining information about Chinese human rights activists.

Google also claims that it’s not the only firm under duress; more than 20 other firms also have been subjected to hacking from internal Chinese sources.  It also says that Gmail accounts in the U.S., Europe and China have been “routinely accessed” by unknown third parties.

Here’s the company’s full statement.

This is a breath-taking announcement for many reasons, not the least of which is the inescapable irony arising from Google’s controversial position to accept certain levels of official Chinese government censorship in 2006 in order to access the huge market there.

It’s also yet another loose mooring in the ongoing efforts by the government of the United States to forge a effective economic, political and cultural relationship with China.  As the world saw during the Beijing Olympic Games, any sort of protest activity was smothered well in advance of the the world news media descending into China to cover the games.  And as Google’s statement makes abundantly clear, China will event turn on its business allies if it feels they are getting in the way of its relentless drive to create the world’s dominant economic super-power.  It thus remains very much to be seen whether anyone in China’s vast governmental infrastructure will even take notice of Google’s threat.

Let’s see if Google follows through and departs its lucrative — but troubling — Chinese market.

Comments on this announcement are all over the internet.  Here’s one sight where the fur is already flying . . .