The ICT Public Relation Center reports that, this 3-day conference, hosted by the city of Wuzhen in eastern Zhejiang province of China, is attended by more than 2000 participants including 8 world leaders, about 50 state ministers, more than 20 global organizations, and around 1000 Internet Corporate managers.
Based on IRNA’s report, among officials attending this international conference were also the participants of the annual meeting of the Heads of Governments (Prime Ministers) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’ (SCO), which concluded their 14th session last night in Zhengzhou, China.
President Xi Jinping of China spoke at the opening ceremony of the conference, underscoring the existing problems and issues of the virtual space, including its abuse by terrorist groups, as a challenge and cause for mutual concern for the global community.
He emphasized on utilizing mutual dialogue as a countermeasure, stating that: “Although the virtual environment is an invisible one, but the people who use this space are visible and today, all countries must unite and collaborate for securing and safeguarding this environment and of course, enriching it.”
He described the internet as the ‘Home of the Modern Man’, adding that: “We have to come together in unified effort and cooperate to make this mutual home more beautiful, more clean, and more secure than it was ever before.”
The Chinese President went on to highlight the reinforcement of the cooperation between different governments regarding virtual space and its issues, reminding that: “In today’s world, everyone must do its best to build a common destiny regarding virtual space and be sure of the fact that without having security, there can be no sustainable progress and development.”
Xi Jinping emphasized on using the term ‘Common Destiny’ for all nations in virtual environment, and included that: “Within this framework, we have to be highly considerate of five key issues: speed up the completion of global network’s infrastructures, create mutual global spaces for interacting training, promote innovation and economic development in virtual environment, ensuring and preserving network security and finally, establishing a comprehensive system for virtual network governance based on justice.”
He announced the willingness of his country to interact with international institutions in regard to confronting internet crimes, asserting that: “Without international cooperation, no country can face this challenge alone.”
Xi Jinping went on to state that the very same insecurity allows the abuse of virtual space by criminals, especially terrorists; therefore, there should be an inherent legal mechanism in place to put a stop to such a trend.
He emphasized that: “We should not allow virtual environment to be transformed into a war zone for countries, or an incubator for developing terrorist activities.”
China’s President added that: “It is our belief that governments should make a joint effort to ward off any exploitation of this environment by terrorist groups, and fight against activities like drug trafficking, money laundering, smuggling, and other manifestations of corruption.”
He asserted: “Network Security is a topic that absolutely cannot be dealt with by double standards. We cannot talk about our national security in virtual environment when other nations simply do not have such an environment. At the same time we cannot endanger the virtual space of other nations under the pretense of safeguarding ours.”
This is the second consecutive time that china is hosting this international event.