As tensions between the U.S. and China heighten over data security issues, Beijing took a proactive measure to unveil a “data security initiative” that it believes can function as “a global standard for data security.”
The Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, appearing in a movie through a closed-door meeting in Beijing on Tuesday, announced the eight-part framework that touches on controversial topics like Beijing’s handling of user data.
Per the principles laid from the initiative, Beijing will not request Chinese organizations to transfer overseas information to the government in breach of other nations’ laws. China also calls on countries to oppose mass surveillance against other states and asks companies to refrain from installing backdoors in their services and products for illegal information collection.
The timing of this announcement is inquisitive, only days before the TikTok sale is scheduled to finish. Washington has maintained the popular video app poses a national security threat to the U.S. because it could hand in data of American consumers to Beijing, a claim that TikTok has denied. Last week, China amended an export law that could complicate the TikTok sale.
The U.S. jurisdiction has also persisted for years over its rhetoric that Huawei puts spyware from its telecommunications equipment, though Washington hasn’t presented direct and public evidence to back up the claim.
While some might dispute concepts put forward by Beijing’s new information safety standard, 1 thing is for sure: China is continuing to drive the cyber sovereignty notion, that has manifested itself at the Great Firewall and data localization rules.
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Chinese and foreign officials as well as think tanks and business representatives were present in the Tuesday meeting and expected to offer proposals about the initiative, stated the Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper.
In his speech, Zhang launched an assault on the Trump administration’s “Clean Network” software that could purge a selection of Chinese tech firms from the U.S. or keep them from doing business with American firms.
“A particular country keeps making groundless accusations against other people in the name of a clean’ network and utilizes safety as a pretext to prey on enterprises of other countries that have a competitive edge. Such blatant acts of bullying should be opposed and rejected,” stated the official without visiting the country, though there was no ambiguity in his description.
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