China reasserts its right to manage the internet its own way
- Propaganda chief tells opening of World Internet Conference each country should choose its own internet ‘governance model’
- Beijing’s top leaders absent from annual conference, in apparent downgrading of an event also light on A-list US tech firms
China reasserted its determination that every country should choose its own internet “governance model”, with its propaganda chief vowing on Wednesday to fight “all forms of hegemony” in cyberspace administration.
In his keynote speech at the opening of the World Internet Conference in the misty river town of Wuzhen in eastern China, Huang Kunming argued that every country should be entitled to take part equally in international cyberspace management.
The annual event – traditionally a high-profile platform for China’s narrative on internet governance – began in unusually low-key fashion against a backdrop of the prolonged trade war with the United States and international wariness of the spreading “China model” of internet control.
“We should adhere to the principle of respecting cyber sovereignty, respecting every individual country’s right to choose its own development path for cyberspace, model of cyber governance and internet public policy,” said Huang, who is in charge of media and public information in China – which still blocks Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who pushed the idea of cyberspace sovereignty at the same event in 2015, sent a letter to the conference, read out by Huang before his speech.