State Department officials have said they intend soon to lodge a formal complaint with Chinese officials over the Google matter, which a senior Chinese government official said Thursday should not affect U.S.-China relations.

Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said in Beijing, "The Google case should not be linked with relations between the two governments and countries; otherwise, it's an over-interpretation," according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

The Xinhua report did not mention censorship, instead referring to Google's "disagreements with government policies."

In a passage of her speech before she explicitly mentioned the Google matter, Clinton spoke broadly about the connection between information freedom and international business.

"Countries that censor news and information must recognize that, from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech," she said. "If businesses in your nation are denied access to either type of information, it will inevitably reduce growth."

"Increasingly, U.S. companies are making the issue of information freedom a greater consideration in their business decisions," she added. "I hope that their competitors and foreign governments will pay close attention to this trend."

She then raised the Google case.

"We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough review of the cyber intrusions that led Google to make its announcement," she said. "We also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent."

Clinton challenged corporations worldwide to stand up against Internet censorship.