Seminar reviews a decade of cyberspace community, from a concept to a cause

It has been a decade since the coinage of the vision of building a community with a shared future in cyberspace. To honor the landmark year, the World Internet Conference (WIC) hosted a seminar in Beijing on Sept 3 to review and celebrate its transformation in the past 10 years from a new vision to a global cause.

The event, Seminar on Advancing the Building of a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace to a New Stage, attracted the participation of prominent experts and industrial leaders in the internet field from China, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, and Australia.

Together they reviewed the theoretical outcomes and practical experiences accumulated over the decade in building a community with a shared future in cyberspace, diving into the profound connotations, significance, and contemporary value of jointly advancing the cause to a new stage.

Topics under discussion at the seminar included the global significance of building a community with a shared future in cyberspace; construction, development and utilization of digital infrastructure; online cultural exchanges and sharing, and mutual learning among civilizations; innovative development of digital economy and achievements sharing; international cooperation on cybersecurity; and global governance of cyberspace.

The seminar highlighted the significance of the vision of building a community with a shared future in cyberspace, which is composed of a series of discourses on cyberspace governance made by Chinese President Xi Jinping, including Four Principles, Five Proposals, Four Commons, and Three Advocacies. The vision, centering on global internet governance, dug into the opportunities and challenges in cyberspace, and offered a comprehensive framework for building a cyberspace community, according to the seminar.

The seminar emphasized that in the face of unprecedented global, epochal, and historical changes, the internet is becoming a new driving force for development, a new frontier for security, and a new bridge for cultural exchange.

In a video speech delivered at the opening ceremony of the 2023 Wuzhen Summit, Xi called for jointly advancing the building of a community with a shared future in cyberspace to a new stage. The seminar called on all stakeholders to seize this new opportunity to drive development, advance cyberspace prosperity, tackle emerging security challenges, and uphold peace and stability. It emphasized the importance of establishing a new governance framework to uphold fairness and justice in cyberspace. The vision of a shared future should guide efforts to enhance sharing of global achievements in cyberspace, make the internet a force for good and deliver more benefits to people worldwide, and ultimately foster better future for humanity, the seminar noted.

Speakers at the seminar included Kilnam Chon, professor emeritus of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and "Father of Internet in South Korea"; Wu Hequan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; David W. Ferguson, honorary chief English editor of Foreign Languages Press, CICG; Li Junru, former vice-president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee; Wu Jianping, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of Zhongguancun Laboratory; Ke Ruiwen, chairman of China Telecom; Shing Chow, CEO of Lalamove; David Gosset, founder of the China-Europe-America Global Initiative; Zeng Yi, member of UN high-level advisory body on artificial intelligence and director of the International Research Center for Al Ethics and Governance at Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Automation; Xu Bu, member of the UN secretary-general’s high-level advisory board on effective multilateralism and chairman of Institute for Global Development at Jiangsu University; and Huang Zhixiong, professor of the International Law Research Institute, vice-dean of the Law School and director of the Institute for Cyber Governance at Wuhan University. Jovan Kurbalija, former co-executive director of the secretariat of the UN high-level panel on digital cooperation, and Michael MacLean, fellow of the Academy of the Humanities of Australia, joined the seminar online.

Representatives from WIC senior member enterprises, including IBM, SAP, Intel, Nokia, Tesla, China Unicom, 360, Pinduoduo, Ping An Insurance, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Lenovo, YinxiangBiji, along with scholars from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, China University of Political Science and Law, and Fudan University, attended the seminar.