China, US work to strengthen cooperation in cyberspace

World Today

A U.S.-China forum began Tuesday to discuss cybersecurity.  More than 150 government officials, industry leaders and academics met in Washington D.C. to examine cooperation in the cybersphere. CCTV America’s Nie Jia reported this story.

The theme of the forum highlights the trend of China-U.S. relations on the Internet issue.

“With the booming development of the Internet, the cyberspace relation between China and U.S. has gained unprecedented attention and importance. The China-U.S. relation on the Internet issue is now an important component of the new model of major power relationship between the two countries and decides the future of both countries to a great extent,” the head of China’s National Internet Information office, Lu Wei said.

Lu Wei said China and the U.S. share common interests. While problems do exist, consensus overweighs disagreement, and there is more dialogue than confrontation.

“I think 90 percent of our Internet issues are at a consensus, and only 10 percent represent disagreements. We should focus on the 90 percent consensus and expand its share, thereby reducing the amount of disagreements,” Lu added.

His views were echoed by Catherine Novelli, U.S. under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and environment.

Novelli said the two countries are cooperating on a lot of things on the Internet. “There are lots of areas we can work on together,” she said.

The Internet Industry Forum was first started seven years ago by Microsoft and the Internet Society of China. This year’s meeting focuses on big data cloud service, Internet connectivity, governance and its impact on economic development and social benefits.