By James T. Areddy
WUZHEN, China-- Dean Garfield says he has made eight trips to
China, but Wednesday marked the first time he was able to update
his Facebook friends with his whereabouts.
"I wanted to send a message this morning, and I assumed it
wouldn't work, " he said, in reference to China's infamous blocks
on Internet social networks.
"But, it worked," said Mr. Garfield, who is chief executive at
the Washington-based trade group Information Technology Industry
Council.
In one town this week, Chinese censors have removed a stone from
their "Great Firewall" of technological controls that typically
make it impossible for the world's largest Internet user base to
see major social networks taken for granted elsewhere. The occasion
for the rare--if limited--concession is a high-powered forum called
the World Internet Conference, which Chinese Internet regulators
and executives are using as a platform to assert ascendancy of
Internet service that is carefully filtered, highly advanced and
hugely profitable.
China's top Internet regulator, Lu Wei, minister of the State
Council's Cyberspace Administration of China, opened the three-day
event on Wednesday in this ancient town of canals. He reiterated
that Internet controls are a sovereign issue and that his
government views the online arena as one that should be a "free and
open place, with rules to follow."
Another policy maker, Ma Kai was more blunt: The Internet is "a
two-edged sword," he said.
On everyone's lips around the 1,300-year-old town of stone
bridges and wooden tea houses is the success of Alibaba Group
Holding Ltd., the online retail bazaar based in nearby Hangzhou.
With its $25 billion initial public offering of stock in September,
Alibaba illustrated the value in China's more than 630 million
Internet users.
In presentations, Chinese executives highlighted their plans for
next-generation services to invest, hail taxis and, in one case,
secure manicure appointments. A researcher for the aerospace
industry, Quan Chunlai, described a "smart police" program now
being tested in China that helps limit crimes by drawing on
personal information such as bank-account data and car
registrations.
"China has its own stories, and we have the opportunity to lead
the world," a panelist said.
Delegates repeatedly cited a desire to ensure the Internet makes
dreams come true. That is a reference to President Xi Jinping's
guiding philosophy of a "China Dream," which he has stamped on
Internet policy by elevating Web development to the core of China's
"overall national security outlook" and by calling on the industry
to generate "positive energy."
Human-rights groups say China is using the fresh policies to
further stifle dissent.
Few Western governments sent top representatives to this week's
congress, which some delegates said reflects concern their presence
might be used as an endorsement of Chinese policy to highly control
the Internet.
Igor Shchegolev, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin,
said national governments should govern "everything where content
is concerned," but he added that it is time for international
agreement on norms in cyberspace.
Some of the Western Internet companies with executives at the
conference, including LinkedIn Corp. and Facebook Inc., sidestepped
censorship issues during their remarks.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman said his company's challenge is
finding the "right kind of cultural fit" in China and that the
online social network is stationing executives in the country. He
didn't elaborate. LinkedIn has been criticized by some users in
China for blocking certain messages on the company's platform in
ways that conform with Chinese policy.
Facebook Vice President Vaughan Smith spoke briefly in Mandarin
before saying that a goal of the social-network company in China is
to place advertising for its clients in the country. Mr. Smith's
remarks echoed a recent speech in Chinese by Facebook co-founder
Mark Zuckerberg .
Mr. Garfield, from the technology-industry association,
challenged any notion that Chinese Internet companies dominate in
the country because their global competitors haven't figured out
the market. Mr. Garfield said those global rivals often aren't
allowed into China. "That's not a cultural issue," he said. "That's
a market-access issue."
Yang Jie contributed to this article.
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