China’s Xi: Hands off our Internet

Mr Xi made the proposals in a speech yesterday that laid out his vision on cyberspace governance when he opened the 2nd World Internet Conference in coastal Zhejiang province’s Wuzhen town. “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”.

The event, which is in its second year, is being attended by leaders from Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and representatives from technology groups.

Xi’s government has presided over tightening controls of the internet in recent years, introducing rules allowing people to be jailed for spreading rumors, drafting a tough new internet law and detaining a number of people for online posts.

US companies and government officials have long complained to cyber-attacks originating out of China, an accusation officials in Beijing have denied, saying they too have been the targets of hacking. “Countries have the right to independently choose their own path of cyber development and model of cyber regulations”, the Chinese President said in an apparent defence to criticism over the ban of global social outlets like Twitter and Facebook in the country.

“This is an all-out assault on Internet freedoms”, she added.

“We should push forward the formulation of global cyberspace rules accepted by all parties and establish worldwide conventions against terrorism in cyberspace, improve the legal assistance mechanism to fight cyber crimes and jointly uphold peace and security in cyberspace”, Xi said.

Xi was speaking Wednesday morning at the opening of the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen in China.

President Xi Jinping says the worldwide community should respect the “Internet sovereignty” of individual countries and build a “multilateral, democratic, and transparent” global Internet governance system. “This is a very important conference as the Internet is rapidly developing”. Xi’s government has even tightened controls since he came to power in 2013, operating an extensive Internet monitoring and censorship program dubbed overseas as the “Great Firewall”.

“Cyberspace is similar to the real world in that both freedom and order are necessary”. “The future of cyberspace should be in the hands of all countries”, he said.

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. However, the organizers do not appear to have repeated last year’s attempt to get diplomats to sign a protocol on the internet, stressing respect for each other’s sovereignty.

Mr Xi said foreign internet companies are still welcome in China and cited examples of potential co-operation in areas like e-commerce.