Google's Schmidt says North Korea must embrace Internet

Google executive Eric Schmidt — fresh off a four-day humanitarian trip with former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson to North Korea — said Thursday that the reclusive nation must provide greater access to the Internet if it hopes to improve economically.

“As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world, their economic growth and so forth and it will make it harder for them to catch up economically,” Schmidt told reporters in Beijing, according to The New York Times. “We made that alternative very, very clear.”

Schmidt said he was disappointed that despite an infrastructure built to support cellular, data and Internet services, it appeared that few North Koreans had cellphones — and that the government was blocking access to the global Internet for those who did.

"It would be very easy for them to turn it on,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt and Richardson's trip came despite some resistance from the Obama administration. 

Last Thursday, a spokeswoman for the State Department said it did not "think the timing of this is particularly helpful" and repeatedly underscored that the Obama administration had not sanctioned the visit.

"They are private citizens,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. “They are traveling in an unofficial capacity. They are not going to be accompanied by any U.S. officials. They are not carrying any messages from us.”

Nuland added that the pair was "well-aware of our views."

Richardson later defended the trip during an interview with CBS News.

“I’ve been dealing with North Korea for 15 years,” Richardson said. “I’ve brought back American servicemen, I’ve brought back American hostages, I’ve negotiated for the remains of our soldiers from the Korean War, food aid. I know the North Koreans.”

Richardson and Schmidt were expected to lobby for the release of Kenneth Bae, a naturalized American citizen born in South Korea who ran a travel company specializing in tours of North Korea. The country's state-run central news agency said last year that Bae had admitted to committing “hostile acts against the republic."

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