China doubles down on internet control after tough new law
BEIJING — China’s leaders and official media are pushing for greater control of the internet and technology products as tensions surrounding a far-reaching Chinese cybersecurity law loom over a gathering this week of the world’s leading tech firms and Chinese officials.
The Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily warned in an editorial on Thursday that China must break monopolies over core technologies and standards and remain untethered to other countries’ technology supply chains.
The commentary, aimed apparently at Silicon Valley in unusually stark terms, comes one day after President Xi Jinping called for “more fair and equitable” governance of the internet at the opening of the state-run World Internet Conference. Since 2014, China has hosted executives from the likes of Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Alibaba in eastern China to promote its vision of an internet that is more tightly controlled by national governments rather than running unchecked as a transnational network.
The conference this week has highlighted U.S. and China’s competing and increasingly entrenched views about the internet, trade and cybersecurity, and the potential for these issues to become an enduring irritant in bilateral relations.