POREG VIEW:  Associated Press correspondent Gillian Wong’s despatch from Beijing that Google was subjected to hacking attacks on the orders of a senior leader doesn’t come as a surprise.   Given the very high levels of paranoia of the leadership and the insecurity complex that is bred by a system without cushions, free speech and freedom have been anathema to the Chinese ruling oligarchy. And WikiLeaks brings this out clearly and unambiguously.

Over the past one year Google has had a running spat with the government over its China-based search engine though the intensity of the pressure it had come under is only now clear.  Like everything else in China that gets going with a nod or wink from the top leadership, the hacking too got the go ahead from the top.

Propaganda chief Li Changchun, the fifth-ranked official in the country, and top security official Zhou Yongkang – both members of the Politburo Standing Committee – oversaw the hacking of Google.

Changchun (66) discovered "critical" articles in Chinese about him and his family after Googling his own name. Ranked as the 19th most powerful person in the world by Forbes magazine last year, he controls what 1.3 billion Chinese see, hear and speak, according to Shanghai based Daily Telegraph correspondent Malcolm Moore. Changchun figures two places below Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, in the Forbes List.

Google’s troubles with China started at the dawn of 2010. In a fit of anger the US based internet search giant decided to call off its cooperation with the Chinese censors. The provocation was hacking its own computer code was subjected to  for access to the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists- one of whom has since won Nobel Prize. As a result, three state-owned phone carriers, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom stopped working with Google.

Going through the WikiLeaks’ cable from US embassy in Beijing, it is clear that the Chinese leadership was perturbed by the reach and depth of Google. Its worldwide site is uncensored, and has access to the contents in its China site. It is also capable of Chinese language searches and search results

In February Peng Bo, a high-ranking official with the Internet bureau of the State Council Information Office, who has termed as sheer nonsense the allegation that the government was either aware or supported Google hacking. Now, a Chinese foreign ministry official dubbed WikiLeaks as "absurd."

But in China Speak, denials matter very little; are no more than proforma exercises. And are not taken seriously.

There is reason to believe that the successful hacking of Google has given to the Chinese Communist Party a new weapon – Internet controls – to force its opponents into submission.