President Mamnoon Hussain will attend the 2nd World Internet Conference to be held in Wuzhen City of China from December 16 to 18, the Foreign Ministry said Friday.
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Lu’s remarks, made ahead of the Second World Internet Conference in Wuhan in eastern Zhejiang Province on Wednesday, come amid rising pressures on the Chinese government over cybersecurity.
He said that sovereign equality – a principle established by the Charter of the United Nations – was a basic norm of modern global relations and it covers all aspects of state-to-state relations including cyber-space.
The achievements partly rely on China’s constant resolution to uphold cyber-sovereignty – an individual country’s right to choose its own Internet regulation model – which biased Western critics decry as negating the open nature of the Internet. “While respecting internet users’ rights to exchange ideas and express their views, efforts should be made to build a sound cyberspace order under the law so as to protect the legitimate rights and interests of all internet users”, he said.
“We should respect other countries’ rights to peaceful involvement in global cyberspace governance, including their choices of internet development, regulation and public policies”.
While China has long censored and regulated its domestic Internet, in recent years it has advanced a concept of “cyber sovereignty” that seeks in part to upend the current system of online governance.
He was speaking at the Beijing sponsored World Internet Conference held in Zhejiang province.
Internet issues have gained prominence under Mr Xi’s rule since late 2012, with him setting up and chairing a new task force a year ago within the Communist Party on cyber security and informatisation issues.
On Mr Xi’s call to the global community to combat Internet terrorism, which refers to attacks on a country’s networks, computer systems and telecommunications infrastructure, analyst Stefanie Kam of the S. Rajaratnam School of worldwide Studies (RSIS) said sustained efforts were needed to thwart cyber terrorist attacks.
China has always been criticised for its strict online censorship. “This is an all-out assault on Internet freedoms”, said Roseann Rife, the East Asia research director at Amnesty International.
“Like in the real world, freedom and order are both necessary in cyberspace: Freedom is what order is meant for, and order is the guarantee for freedom”, Xi said.
Beijing has also faced criticism for persistent hacking on US firms, in addition to its human rights abuses.
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Furthermore, the conference will review the achievements of China’s Internet development over the last two decades and look into the future by displaying a treasure house of the latest technical inventions.
