Wuzhen panelists say Internet requires global cooperation

Jack Ma, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd chairman, leaves the stage after addressing the closing ceremony of the Second World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, on Dec 18, 2015. [Photo by Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily]

The three-day World Internet Conference concluded on Friday, with those attending the meeting calling for global cooperation in Internet governance.

Jack Ma, chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, said at the closing ceremony," The world community will face a huge challenge without international systematic governance of the Internet.

"It is not about who can manage it well, but rather there's a need for a governance by all countries."

Ma said that of the 3.2 billion Internet users worldwide, 1.5 billion were born after 1980, and 700 million users are in China.

Consensus was reached by conference participants from China and abroad that Internet governance needs global cooperation.

Lu Wei, director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, called for more efforts for "an interconnected world shared and governed by all".He also called for establishing a global cyberspace governance system so that a community of common destiny can be achieved.

Luigi Cambardella, president of ChinaEU, a business-led international association, said there are prejudices against China in Internet governance.

"Those who did not show up at this conference have made a mistake. Because they are not present, they don't know what the conference is really about," Cambardella said. "At this conference, I find Lu Wei is quite open and willing to listen to foreigners' ideas."

He said ChinaEU is finalizing an agreement with the China Internet Development Foundation. "With the agreement, we will launch the first China-EU policy center to study both European and Chinese regulation of the Internet and big data. The center will focus on existing and future regulations," Cambardella said.

The center will be established at the beginning of next year, with offices in Brussels and Beijing, he added.

Siaosi Sovaleni, deputy prime minister of Tonga, echoed President Xi Jinping's remarks, made at the opening of the conference, that cyberspace should not become a battlefield for countries to wrestle with one another.

Sovaleni said that all countries are faced with the challenge of cybersecurity and crime, and they are obliged to cooperate in governance of online activities. International efforts should be made to prevent the Internet from becoming a hotbed of crime, he said.

The Wuzhen Initiative, released at the closing ceremony, said it is the shared responsibility of the international community to actively meet the challenges.