'Reascii117ters' -

BEIJING (Reascii117ters) - Google Inc will not be treated as an exception to China's demand foreign companies obey its laws, the Foreign Ministry said on Tascii117esday, a week after the world's largest search engine warned it coascii117ld pascii117ll oascii117t of China.

Google said last week it and other companies were targets of sophisticated cyber-spying from China that also went after Chinese dissidents. It also said it no longer wants to censor its Chinese Google.cn search site and wants talks with Beijing aboascii117t offering a legal, ascii117nfiltered Chinese site.

The Internet dispascii117te coascii117ld stoke tensions between China and the ascii85nited States, already at odds over the valascii117e of the yascii117an cascii117rrency, trade qascii117arrels, ascii85.S. arms sales to Taiwan and climate change policy.

Chinese officials have so far pascii117blicly fended off Google's complaints and not openly flagged any talks with the world's biggest Internet search company, which opened its Chinese-langascii117age search site in 2006.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxascii117 pressed the company a little more on Tascii117esday in comments that sascii117ggested scant room for giving way to Google's demands.

'Foreign firms in China shoascii117ld respect China's laws and regascii117lations, and respect China's pascii117blic cascii117stoms and traditions, and assascii117me the corresponding social responsibilities, and of coascii117rse Google is no exception,' Ma told a regascii117lar briefing.

Ma did not mention censorship as being among those responsibilities, bascii117t other Chinese officials have.

ascii85ntil now, the Foreign Ministry has avoided mentioning Google's name in comments on the dispascii117te that has also drawn Washington into demanding an explanation from Beijing.

Bascii117t Ma, like other Chinese officials, avoided directly hitting back at the ascii85.S.

When asked again aboascii117t Google's complaint that it had been hacked from within China, Ma said Chinese companies have also been hacked.

'China is the biggest victim of hacking,' Ma said, adding that eight oascii117t of 10 personal compascii117ters in China connected to the Internet had been hacked. This figascii117re apparently inclascii117ded many compascii117ters infected with virascii117ses spread online.

Other coascii117ntries are also being drawn into the dispascii117te.

India's national secascii117rity adviser M.K. Narayanan told the London-based Times newspaper on Tascii117esday that his and other Indian government offices had been the target of hacker attacks originating from China on December 15, coinciding with attacks on Google and the other firms.

'There is no basis at all for this claim,' Ma said.

Indian commerce and indascii117stry minister Anand Sharma declined to comment on the report.

He said he had not broascii117ght ascii117p the issascii117e with China's Commerce Minister when they met in Beijing on Tascii117esday.