At the elite Tsinghua University here, some students were joking Friday that they had better download all the Internet information they wanted now in case Google left the country. But to many of the young, well-educated Chinese who are Google's loyal users here, the company's threat to leave is in fact no laughing matter. Interviews in Beijing's downtown and university district indicated that many viewed the possible loss of Google's maps, translation service, sketching software, access to scholarly papers and search function with real distress. 'How am I going to live without Google?' asked Wang Yuanyuan, a 29-year-old businessman, as he left a convenience store in Beijing's business district. China's Communist rulers have long tried to balance their desire for a thriving Internet and the economic growth it promotes with their demands for political control. The alarm over Google among Beijing's younger, better educated and more Internet savvy citizens -- China's future elite -- shows how wobbly that balancing act can be. By publicly challenging China's censorship, Google has stirred up the debate over the government's claim that constraints on free speech are crucial to political stability and the prosperity that has accompanied it. Even if it is unlikely to pose any immediate threat to the Communist Party, Google's move has clearly discomfited the government, Chinese analysts say. 'If this process goes on, more and more people are going to realize that their freedom of information is being infringed upon, and this could bring changes down the line,' said Hu Yong, a journalism professor at Peking University. Google's estimated 80 million users are comparatively better educated and wealthier; surveys show that roughly two-thirds are college educated. A Beijing technology consultant, Kaiser Kuo, describes them as 'a potentially very noisy constituency.' An Internet expert who insisted on anonymity for fear of repercussions from the government said: 'It is not like they are going to take to the streets,' he added. 'But it further erodes the legitimacy of what the Communist Party is doing. This is a group the party doesn't want to lose any more than it already has.' Other Internet users argue that Google must respect the Chinese government's policies if it wants to do business here. 'I think government control of this is quite reasonable,' said Liu Qiang, 29, a Tsinghua University mechanical engineer graduate student. 'Our party needs to stabilize its governance.' 