China's door open to global Internet: Cyber watchdog

Lu Wei, head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, introduces the 2nd World Internet Conference at the press briefing in Beijing, Dec 9, 2015. [Photo/China Daily]

China's top Internet watchdog said on Wednesday it maintains not only the freedom but also the order of cyber space and China's door is always open to global Internet firms unless they do harm to the country's national interest and consumers' rights.

Lu Wei, minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China, made the remarks at a press briefing ahead of the Second World Internet Conference scheduled from Dec 16 to 18 in the riverside town of Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang province.

President Xi Jinping is expected to attend the conference and deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony.

"China manages its cyber space under of the rule of law, or in other words, we manage the relationship between freedom and order in an appropriate way," said Lu.

He refuted some Western media reports that "China controls its Internet," while confirming the fact that the Chinese government has strengthened governance of problems over the Internet since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

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"The government has flexed its muscles on cracking down on online rumors, cyber-related crimes and cyber pornography," said Lu. He added the tight management of cyber space has produced effective results and helped protect the legal rights of netizens as well as nurture a healthy environment for the young.

Lu didn't deny that the country's cyber watchdog asked website operators to delete some social media posts. He said the deletions were focused on harmful information.

"We have an Internet office receiving tip-offs from Internet users and we asked the website operators to deal with these tip-offs," said Lu.

He also said some of the deletions were conducted based on the contract between the websites and netizens, and protocol states that posts running counter to China's law and the growth of young users have to be deleted.

When answering a reporter's question on "block" and "proxy," Lu said the government is strengthening the governance in cyberspace by law and also sticking up the policy of opening up according to law.

"China will never close its door and we are open to all the Internet enterprises as long as they do not hurt the national and consumer interest," said Lu.

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He cited a figure that some Western Internet firms gain half their profits from the Chinese market, which proved that China has an open and fair Internet market.

The theme of the upcoming conference is mutual connection on networks and mutual governance in cyberspace, according to Lu.

Compared with the first conference last year, the number of guests has increased with more than 2,000 participants from home and abroad and about 50 percent will be from foreign countries.

Of the foreign guests, eight are state leaders, including Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov, Kyrgyz Prime Minister Temir Sariyev and Tajik Prime Minister Kokhir Rasulzoda, and nearly 50 are minister-level officials.