WASHINGTON, Jan 14, 2010 (AFP) - The White House on Thursday backed Google's decision to no longer submit to China's Internet censorship in a row the search giant warns could lead it to pull out of the country.

"We strongly support Google's action," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, recalling that President Barack Obama had spoken out publicly in favor of Internet freedoms during a webcast event in Shanghai last year.

"The president has strong beliefs about the universal rights of men and women throughout the globe. Those aren't carved out for certain countries," Gibbs said.

Obama's spokesman however avoided a question on whether the Google row could threaten wider US-China relations, which Obama has attempted to improve since coming to office last year.

Gibbs on Wednesday declined to go into details about the extent of the administration's discussions with Google about its showdown with the Chinese government.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked for an explanation from China for what Google said was a wave of "highly sophisticated" cyberattacks aimed at Chinese human rights activists.

Google announced on Tuesday that it would stop bowing to Chinese Internet censors and could pull out of the world's largest online market of 360 million users.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Jiang Yu said Thursday that the Chinese government administered the Internet "according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what information and content can be spread over the Internet."