Beijing has also faced criticism for persistent hacking on USA firms, in addition to its human rights abuses.
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In his speech at the World Internet Conference, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged nations to cooperate in regulating the Internet in order to prevent the abusive use of information technology. On Monday, Pu Zhiqiang, a rights lawyer who defended dissidents, was tried on charges of “provoking trouble” and “inciting ethic hatred” in seven social-media postings critical of party policies toward the Uighur minority in the western Xinjiang region. Yesterday, I spoke with President Xi Jinping about the Baidu self-driving car’s test run in Beijing last week. “There should be no cyber-hegemony, no interfering in others’ internal affairs, no engaging, supporting or inciting cyber-activities that would harm the national security of other countries”.
“We should respect every country’s own choice of their Internet development path and management model, their Internet public policy and the right to participate in managing global cyberspace”, Xi said.
“Freedom is the aim of order, order is the guarantor of freedom”, he said. Cyberspace must be governed, operated and used in accordance with the law so that the internet can enjoy sound development under the rule of law’.
An editorial carried by the official Xinhua news agency said instead of bringing collapse as some predicted, the internet in China was “becoming more commercially robust and innovative despite regulation and oversight”.
Earlier this month it was announced that Google had quietly set up Pengji Information Technology (Shanghai) Ltd inside the free-trade zone which may see the United States tech giant pursuing a return to the country by launching a GooglePlay store for China which agrees to comply with the local laws on filtering content.
Other countries in the Belt and Road network are excited about the opportunities made clear by Xi’s speech.
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. “We need to connect users as well”, said the home appliance tycoon at a sub-forum during the ongoing World Internet Conference ending Friday.
The first “high-level joint dialogue on cybercrime” between the two countries, which took place at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, has been viewed as a positive step forward. Xi did not speak at last year’s event.
Nonetheless companies such as LinkedIn have agreed to censor their content in exchange for access to the country, while Facebook and other banned companies have lined up to offer the hand of friendship to China’s top leaders.
Meanwhile, President Xi stressed that China was committed to developing the internet for commercial purposes, emphasizing the potential of big data and online business.
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“The development of Internet in China has gone beyond its own domain as it is connected with the real economy in an increasingly large scale”.
