Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday laid out his vision for the Internet, calling for a new “status quo” where Internet sovereignty rests in the hands of nations controlling the flow of information.
“Each country should join hands and together curb the abuse of information technology, oppose network surveillance and hacking, and fight against a cyberspace arms race,” Xi told China’s second World Internet Conference.
He said that would help fight online crime and terrorism and promote “healthy development” of the Internet.
Photo: Reuters
“Cyberspace is similar to the real world in that both freedom and order are necessary,” Xi added, saying Internet users’ rights to exchange views must be respected while maintaining order in accordance with the law.
The meeting was organized by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Cabinet agency that enforces Internet controls.
Since Xi took China’s helm in early 2013, he has presided over a centralization of domestic Internet governance and broader efforts to control, and often censor, the flow of information online, experts say.
China infamously operates a “Great Firewall,” the world’s most sophisticated online censorship system, which blocks and attacks Internet services the government deems unsavory.
Critics of China’s Internet governance have said foreign tech companies should not lend Beijing credibility by agreeing to comply with its policies.
On Tuesday, the human rights group Amnesty International appealed to technology companies to resist Chinese initiatives that might curb freedom of expression or worsen human rights abuses.
“Under the guise of sovereignty and security, the Chinese authorities are trying to rewrite the rules of the Internet so censorship and surveillance become the norm everywhere,’’ Roseann Rife, Amnesty’s Hong Kong-based East Asia research director, said in a statement. “This is an all-out assault on Internet freedoms.”
“Tech companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Microsoft, must be prepared to say ‘no’ to China’s repressive Internet regime and put people and principles before profits,” Rife said.
Others, including Reporters Without Borders and China censorship watchdog GreatFire.org, called for a boycott of the conference.
Organizers said about 2,000 people were due to attend the conference, including representatives of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft Corp, IMB, Alibaba Group Holding (阿里巴巴), Tencent Holdings (騰訊) and Baidu (百度), as well as Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain and officials from Russia and Kazakhstan.
While Facebook and Twitter, among others, are blocked in China, that was not the case in Wuzhen, where attendees enjoyed unfettered access to Web sites.
“This is the place with the best Internet connection in China,” Kaspersky Lab chief executive Eugene Kaspersky said.
Additional reporting by AP
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