China Voice: Cyber security high on China's agenda

With a new national security law passed and a draft cyber security law in the works, China will further safeguard the country's computers as cyber crimes are on the rise.

Cyberspace has become "a new pillar of economic and social development, and a new domain of national security," according to a white paper on China's military strategy released in May.

With dire need of a law which can guarantee systematic legal measures to protect the cyberspace and its users, the new national security law focused heavily on cyber security.

The 68-article draft cyber security law, which was discussed by lawmakers for the first time late last month, is designed to protect the public, not to undermine their freedom, as Western media claimed, the lawmakers said.

Although the Internet is in a sense without borders, Internet security has a border.

The Internet is another important aspect of the nation's infrastructure. Within China, it is subject to the country's sovereignty. China respects other countries' sovereignty in the domain of cyber security, and expects them to respect China as well in the same regard.

In order to avoid the Internet being used as a communication tool for social peril, the draft stipulates that Internet service could be temporarily suspended to respond to "major emergencies" that may seriously threaten public security.

In light of this, cyber security is not just about national security and development, but also concerns the immediate interests of every Internet user.

Other countries share similar views. The United States, the undisputed No. 1 giant in the cyber world, also considers cyber security a top issue and signed several bills in this field last December.

Cyber security is closely linked to security in the financial and information sector. The draft stresses the protection of personal information from theft, leakage or illegal use.

Since China connected to World Wide Web in 1994, the Internet has profoundly changed the country's way of life and business. China has the world's largest number of Internet users but it still lags behind in development of Internet technology.

China also falls victim to cyber attacks. A series of cyber security incidents and Internet service outages stoked concern among the public about online data safety. Alipay, China's largest online payment platform, reported anomalies earlier this year, which were found to be linked to an optical fiber glitch. The next day, Ctrip.com, the country's largest online travel agent, scrambled to fix a service outage after its website and mobile platform went down.

Low public awareness has caused great loss to finance and personal property. Nearly 32 percent of 332 million Chinese users of mobile payment have been attacked by phishing and other online scam attempts, with losses increasing four fold in 2014 year on year.

President Xi Jinping, who also heads the central Internet security and informatization leading group, said last year that "cyberspace should be made clean and chipper" and "no Internet safety means no national security." Endit