Zhuang Rongwen will take over as head of the Cyberspace Administration of China. Photo: Xinhua
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https://scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2157762/beijing-names-new-internet-watchdog-china-keeps-door Politics
Beijing names new internet watchdog as China keeps door closed to global tech giants
Zhuang Rongwen’s appointment to top job at Cyberspace Administration will make him a key point of contact for tech firms looking to do business in China
China maintains tight controls over the internet. Photo: AFP
China has officially named Zhuang Rongwen as the new chief of the agency supervising the country’s internet.
The announcement that Zhuang would replace Xu Lin as head of the Cyberspace Administration of China confirms a report by the South China Morning Post last week, which also said that President Xi Jinping was seeking to shake up the country’s propaganda and censorship wings.
Xu, a former aide to Xi in Shanghai, is expected to become the Communist Party’s new international propaganda chief, sources told the Post last week.
Wednesday’s official statement did not say what Xu’s new role would be, only that he would be given a new title later.
Zhuang, in his new role as China’s cyberspace tsar, will be a key figure for global technology giants trying to get a foothold in the market of about 800 million online users.
Facebook received local authority approval and incorporated a subsidiary in the Chinese city of Hangzhou last month but the business licence was quickly revoked by Chinese censors, according to a New York Times report.
China still bans a long list of social media platforms and websites from the China market, including Twitter, Google, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook.
Zhuang, 57, who earlier worked under Xi in the province of Fujian, is rising quickly in the official hierarchy.
He was just promoted in April to head of the State Administration of Press and Publication. Earlier this month, Zhuang assumed a new title as the director for National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications.
China’s 800 million internet users are a tempting target for global tech giants. Photo: EPA
The CAC’s former chief, Lu Wei, was charged with taking a “huge amount” of bribes on Monday.
Xu Lin has been tipped to take over as propaganda chief. Photo: SCMP/ Simon Song
Lu, widely seen as the public face of China’s draconian control over the internet during his term at the helm of the agency until 2016, now faces a trial, after he was expelled from the party and publicly shamed for a long list of wrongdoings, including trading power for sex.
Lu was known as the flamboyant gatekeeper of China’s internet in his heyday, courted by the world’s most prominent technology executives including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
He made headlines in the United States in 2014 when he visited the Californian headquarters of Facebook and sat in Zuckerberg’s seat.
In comparison, his successors, both Xu and Zhuang, kept low profiles.
According to Zhuang’s official biography, he had worked an economic planning official in Fujian for many years before he was promoted to Beijing to work at the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, handling complaints and petitions from overseas Chinese about economic issues.
Zhuang’s career path had little to do with ideology control before his promotion to the cyberspace administration in 2015 as a deputy director.
In that role, Zhuang had made a few public speeches about how to use internet technology to improve the governance of China.
In a public speech in August 2017, Zhuang lauded the “internet court” in Hangzhou, which allows cases to be settled online, as a new achievement in using the internet to administer the country.
In April that same year, Zhuang, attended the Internet Economy Summit in Hong Kong and suggested that the city embrace internet technology to speed up “digital economy development”.