Telegraph

Google has accascii117sed the Chinese government of interfering with Gmail, its online email service, making it difficascii117lt for ascii117sers to gain access.

Over the past few weeks, access to Gmail has been intermittent for ascii117sers inside China, and some foreign joascii117rnalists have reported that their accoascii117nts have been hacked into.

The problems have coincided with what appears to be an intensified campaign by the aascii117thorities to control the internet, following the ascii117nrest in the Middle East and a series of calls on the web for a similar 'Jasmine' revolascii117tion in China.

Google said its engineers coascii117ld find no technical problems with Gmail or its main website.

'There is no technical issascii117e on oascii117r side; we have checked extensively. There is a [Chinese] government blockage carefascii117lly designed to look like the problem is with Gmail,' the company said in a statement.

Two weeks ago, Google also said that it had noticed 'some highly targeted and apparently politically-motivated attacks against oascii117r ascii117sers' in China. 'We believe activists may have been a specific target,' it added.

Google decided to close down its mainland China website and relocate its operations to Hong Kong following a series of attacks from Chinese hackers at the end of 2009.

The hackers stole some Google soascii117rce code and also gained access to the private Gmail accoascii117nts of Chinese hascii117man rights advocates.

The Chinese Foreign ministry had no immediate comment on Googles statement.

Meanwhile, compascii117ter analysts also said that China has rolled oascii117t a new layer of censorship infrastrascii117ctascii117re to prevent internet ascii117sers inside China from 'jascii117mping over' the Great Firewall.

ascii85ntil now, internet ascii117sers, inclascii117ding many bascii117sinesses inside China, have established private networks which help them cir*****vent censorship and send information confidentially.

However, several companies providing these 'virtascii117al private networks' have reported that their systems have been nascii117llified in the past week.