Beijing, Jan. 14 (Reuters): China defended its extensive censorship and brushed aside hacking claims today, telling companies not to buck state control of the Internet after US search giant Google threatened to quit the country.

Google’s challenge to Beijing came as foreign businesses have voiced growing frustration at China’s business climate, even as Chinese economic growth outpaces the rest of the world.

Google said it may shut its Chinese-language google.cn website and offices in China after a cyber-attack originating from China that also targeted other firms and human rights campaigners using its Gmail service. The company said it would discuss with the Chinese government ways to offer an unfiltered search engine, or pull out.

But minister Wang Chen of China’s state council information office said Internet companies should help the one-party government steer the fast-changing society.

Wang did not mention Google, but his comments suggested little room for compromise in the feud over Internet freedom. “Our country is at a crucial stage of reform and development, and this is a period of marked social conflicts,” Wang said. Today, the information office also named five Chinese websites it said had not done enough to stamp out content banned as crude or pornographic.