Mamnoon leaves for China to attend World Internet moot

“But national security concerns could deter countries from cooperating and pose a challenge for China in pushing for the treaty despite the pressing need”, said Ms Kam.

Present governance rules hardly reflected the interests of most countries, Xi said as he slammed “double standards” in cyberspace management.

He also proposed joint global efforts to combat cybercrimes like drug trafficking, money laundering and gambling, and to formulate “widely accepted” guidelines to oppose espionage, hacking and an “arms race” in cyberspace.

“The United States and China agree that neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors”, the White House said.

“There has been no worldwide cyberspace governance and China is emphasising [the need] to create one because it affects its core interests”, said He Qisong, a professor at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. “The future of cyberspace should be in the hands of all countries”, he said.

“This is the place with the best Internet connection in China”, Kaspersky Lab chief executive Eugene Kaspersky said.

A proposed new cyber security law would only exacerbate China’s already strict internet censorship and extensive surveillance.

Chinese state media also reported that more than 2,000 participants from over 120 territories were expected at the conference, including leaders from tech giants Apple, Microsoft, and Nokia.

Despite the repressive actions of the Chinese government, technology companies have an independent responsibility to respect worldwide human rights, including the right to privacy, freedom of expression and freedom from unlawful detention. Many other countries were represented by locally based diplomats.

The WIC, founded a year ago, is part of Beijing’s effort to “assume the responsibility of a great network power”. Foreign diplomats say such a declaration was put under their hotel room doors on the last night of the conference previous year, but they refused to sign it.

The second World Internet Conference opened in Wuzhen, China on December 16.

Lu Wei, head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, defended China’s policies at a briefing on the conference earlier this month.

The official Global Times newspaper on Wednesday dismissed “news and information freedom” as a “detail, a small corner” of the “vast field of internet freedom”.

Yesterday, Mr Xi said cyberspace needs freedom and order, adding that “freedom is the goal for order, and order guarantees freedom”.

China’s largely rubber stamp parliament in July also passed a sweeping national security law that tightened government control in politics, culture, the military, the economy, technology and the environment.