Recently, China announced its plans to launch its own series of global data security standards after the United States released its standards. The US previously moved to urge other countries to ringfence themselves from Chinese technology.
Chinese data-security initiative
On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced the decision during a Beijing seminar tackling global digital governance. The official continued to detail increasing risks to the country's data security from what he called attempts at politicizing security issues.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Wang said that to counter the challenges, China must move forward with the development of international rules that tackles that nation's data security. The official also added that the rules must mirror the perspective of other countries.
Wang's announcement comes during a time of heightened international tensions with the United States government over several issues, including territorial disputes, international sanctions, and trade that has created an increasingly divided online environment.
The United States government has continuously moved to defend itself from what is considered as threats to its national security. Trump has since proposed to take action against Chinese tech firms, including Huawei and other Chinese-owned mobile apps such as TikTok and WeChat.
However, Chinese officials have seen Trump's orders as imposing a double standard and only moves to sabotage Chinese-owned businesses from expanding their reach within the United States.
Wang made the announcement a month after United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed the Clean Network Program. The order aims to ban all Chinese telecommunication firms, apps, and other technology services from accessing internet infrastructure used by the US and several other countries.
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Development of technological capacity
On the other hand, China's initiative includes eight key points, one of which is refraining from using technology to hinder other countries' technological activities and development or steal their data.
The order also includes a provision that ensures service providers respect their customers by not creating backdoors to their systems and illegally accessing private data.
The Chinese foreign minister added that the initiative aims to end the infringement of personal information and rivals the use of technology for mass surveillance against other states, as reported by CNBC.
The initiative also details that companies must respect other countries' laws and put an end to the coercion with local firms to store data acquired from their original territory. Analysts said that most of the initiative's details address the US government's claims.
According to Channel News Asia, Wang accused anonymous countries of decisions that support aggressive unilateralism and accusing other nations by spreading baseless claims. The official added some countries have continued to bully other nations by specifically targetting leading companies, arguing that they pose a national security threat.
The government heavily controls China's cyberspace through what most people refer to as the "Great Firewall," which has continued to restrict access from several major US firms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Alphabet, the owner of Google.
Last week, Wang revealed Beijing's plans to release its own data-security initiative during a video conference attended by foreign ministers from a group of 20 nations.
