White paper explains country's vision for internet

China pledged on Monday to continue its international cooperation to promote internet development and regulate order online, as it issued a white paper titled "Jointly Build a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace".

The white paper introduced China's vision of internet development and governance in the new era and its actions, shared Chinese achievements in promoting the building of a community with a shared future in cyberspace and outlined the prospects for international cooperation.

With the rapid growth of information technology, the internet has penetrated into all aspects of human life and work, but has also made people face evermore prominent threats and challenges, Cao Shumin, deputy head of Cyberspace Administration of China said, while introducing the white paper.

"The situation calls for more just, reasonable and effective cyberspace governance through joint efforts as well as a strong global response," she said.

The concept of building a community with a shared future in cyberspace was proposed by President Xi Jinping at the second World Internet Conference in December 2015. It not only expresses China's will to work with other countries to advance internet development, but also gives China's solution in cyberspace governance.

Calling the internet the shared home of all of humanity, the white paper said it is the common responsibility of the international community to make this home cleaner, safer and more prosperous.

In recent years, China has further consolidated its defenses against cyber threats, improved its cyberspace legislation, built a national cybersecurity emergency response system and provided increasingly strong protection in terms of key information infrastructure and the development of various security industries, said Sun Weimin, head of the administration's cybersecurity coordination bureau.

"A basic legal framework — including the Cybersecurity Law, the Data Security Law, the Personal Information Protection Law and the Cybersecurity Review Measures — has been put in place, while more than 60 colleges nationwide have opened cybersecurity schools to give greater emphasis to educating cybersecurity professionals," she added.

In response to some foreign enterprises' concern that their business will be restricted in China under its stronger cybersecurity measures, Qi Xiaoxia, head of the administration's international cooperation bureau, said: "There is no need to worry at all."

"China will continue the principle of opening-up, and its door will be opened wider," she said, adding that foreign-funded enterprises have confidence in China's business environment, as evidenced by there being more than 1 million such companies in China.

"The Chinese government has always been committed to creating a market-oriented, law-based and international business environment to encourage enterprises to develop and give them equal protection, no matter where they're from," she said.