China active in fighting global cybercrimes

China has been actively participating in the cooperation and governance of international cyber security, Chinese experts said on Tuesday. They urged the government to include cyber security construction in the country’s growing interests overseas.

The Chinese government has established a negotiation mechanism on cyberspace security with Japan and South Korea and signed an agreement with Russia, Chen Zhimin, former vice minister of Public Security and also president of China Association for Friendship, said at the Forum of International Cooperation on Cybersecurity held in Beijing on Tuesday.

The forum is part of the International Security Conference (ISC) 2018 hosted by Qihoo 360, China’s leading internet security services provider. It brought together around 50 technol-

ogy experts and ambassadors from China, the US, Japan and other countries along the routes of the China-proposed the Belt and Road initiative.

The attendees work in government agencies, universities, companies, think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, and discussed the current situation and international cyber security trend, international cooperation on cyber security and the thorny issues on cyber security governance.

China is also working with the US, the UK, Canada and Australia on fighting cybercrimes and has developed close law enforcement links with over 100 countries and regions, Chen said.

Chen said that since 2017 the Ministry of Public Security sent teams to Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia and Cambodia to help local police fight telecoms fraud, and successfully busted 128 criminal gangs.

The ministry arrested 1,196 suspects, brought 1,014 of them back to China and uncovered over 5,000 cases involving over 300 million yuan ($44 million), Chen noted.

Qihoo 360 President Qi Xiangdong said that China's cyber security market will exceed 100 billion yuan by 2022, and will double every three years.

Cyber security standard

Cyber security experts attending the forum noted that the internet has turned the world into a global village, but also faces challenges, such as the uneven development and imperfect rules. Cybercrimes, intellectual property infringement and identity theft occur worldwide. Network monitoring and attacks and cyber terrorism are a global headache.

They pointed out that the only way to achieve internet governance is to work together to strengthen communication, achieve a consensus and deepen cooperation based on mutual respect and trust.

“After years of efforts, China has established a systematic framework for a cyber security standard and developed hundreds of technology standards in various fields,” Gu Jianguo, vice president of the China Security and Protection Industry Association, said at the forum.

Gu said that every year, China would gather dozens of experts to attend international standard conferences and participate in the formulation of international standards.

Yu Jun, a professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of Communist Party of China, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the construction of cyber security should be included in the country's overseas interests expansion scheme.

To promote international cooperation on cyber security, Xu Longdi, associate research fellow at the China Institute of international Studies, suggested that countries should reach an agreement that promises not to launch cyber attacks on key infrastructure.

Experts at the forum also called for joint efforts to protect data, especially personal information.

Better data protection needs the collaboration of various countries and regions, which is difficult to achieve, Liu Bing, CEO of Vackbot, a virtual hacker robot company based in Beijing, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

“Governments have their own interests to protect; therefore, it is hard for them to share data with each other,” Liu noted.