China's cyber move in the right direction

In 2012, the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence conducted security investigations on Chinese IT firms. And it also asked federal agencies to choose cloud computing services from service providers that passed its security vetting.

In the UK, companies have to be vetted to meet new cyber security standards if they want to do business with the government, according to a new government policy from 2013. The policy prepares UK businesses against the growing threat of online attacks.

For China, Internet attacks could be a fatal threat given its weak technological abilities and lack of high-caliber professionals in related fields. It depends heavily on imports of key computer components, such as CPUs, operating systems, databases and high-end server products, making it highly vulnerable to online threats. Its IT markets, meanwhile, have been dominated by Western giants, such as Microsoft, Cisco, IBM and Intel.

Now the number of Internet users in China has risen to 618 million, the largest in the world. But China's poor technological capacities have prevented the country from effectively protecting its users.

The Edward Snowden incident served as a catalyst for China to accelerate its cyber security build-up. It has become more alert following the revelations of Snowden, a former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, that the US had been spying on various Chinese institutions and companies.

The new IT product and service vetting policy could be the start of China's renewed efforts to build its own "technological Great Wall" to protect its national interest. It set up a central Internet security and information-leading group led by President Xi Jinping in February.

More steps could follow suit for China on its road to an "Internet power".

The author is a senior writer with China Daily. xinzhiming@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/24/2014 page5)