BEIJING: China’s internet watchdog has risen to the forefront of Beijing’s sweeping efforts to reign in its digital sector and enforce tighter data security procedures, after shocking investors with an inquiry into Didi Global two days after the ride-hailing giant’s New York stock market debut. President Xi Jinping established the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) in its current form in 2014, and it enforces online censorship that has tightened substantially during his reign. The agency promotes Beijing’s “internet sovereignty” policy, which locks China’s vast online ecosystem behind the Great Firewall.
Its action against Didi and two other companies that recently went public in the United States was quickly followed by Beijing’s announcement that it will tighten regulations on overseas-traded Chinese companies, many of which are U.S.-listed tech companies, including cross-border data flows and security.
According to Rogier Creemers, an assistant professor of Chinese studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, there is growing skepticism of big tech’s power and influence in China, as well as abroad.
“So we’re at a point where the stars are aligned for action against these businesses to be taken, and then it all happens almost at the same time from all these different aspects,” he said, alluding to multiple regulatory organizations’ actions.
Since late last year, various authorities, including the country’s increasingly assertive competition watchdog, the State Administration for Market Regulation, have conducted high-profile investigations and imposed penalties against “platform economy” enterprises.
The CAC is asserting its cybersecurity role, according to Creemers.
“Is it a question of turf or substance? It’s about both of them, “he stated A request for comment from the CAC was not immediately returned. The CAC accused Didi of improperly collecting users’ personal data and demanded that the company stop accepting new users in China, claiming that Didi’s app “violates serious laws and regulations relevant to the collection of personal information.”
When asked about the CAC’s recent move, Wang Wenbin, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, said that authorities oversee and conduct safety inspections on online platforms to reduce risk and protect national security.
“China’s policy is unaffected. We will continue to open up the internet and support the development of online platforms, as well as urge Chinese firms to participate in international exchanges and collaboration “he stated BUSY AND POWERFUL The CAC looms large over China’s vast internet, issuing frequent regulatory measures and warnings. Its public WeChat account includes summaries of events and speeches, notifications of enforcement actions, and propaganda extolling the merits of Xi and the ruling Communist Party, similar to that of other party and state institutions. Following a CAC commitment to clean up the internet to safeguard minors and crack down on social media organizations having a “bad influence,” WeChat erased scores of LGBT accounts established by university students, claiming that some had broken rules. Prior to the Communist Party’s 100th anniversary on July 1, the agency opened a hotline to report online remarks that insult the party and its history, promising to crack down on “historical nihilists” – individuals spreading information that contradicts sanctioned narratives. In more mundane measures, it collaborated with other agencies in April to release standards mandating how apps must protect user privacy and personal data. In January, it polled the public on whether previous rules governing online payments, commerce, and livestreaming platforms should be updated. According to Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-refinitiv-idUSKCN1T42AE) in 2019, that Refinitiv, the news service’s largest customer, withheld politically sensitive Reuters items from its Chinese financial customers, citing a threat from the CAC to have its service shut down. The CAC has also been in charge of removing tens of thousands of news, social media, and gaming apps from Apple’s China app store and other local services in recent years. HISTORY IN COLOR The CAC’s early years were defined by its brash head, Lu Wei, who managed the establishment of China’s annual World Internet Conference, which has drawn global tech titans like Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai to Wuzhen, China’s eastern tourist resort. When organizers sought agreement on a last-minute declaration on “internet sovereignty” before the inaugural 2014 summit, foreign tech corporations objected. Representatives from the industry eventually rejected to sign the pledge. Lu notably flew to Silicon Valley that year, when he was greeted in Mandarin by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s headquarters. The Great Firewall prohibited Facebook, as well as most other major international social networking and news sites, at the time. Lu, who resigned unexpectedly in 2016, was purged from the Communist Party in 2018 and sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2019 for accepting bribes totaling about $5 million, making him one of the most senior officials caught up in Xi’s anti-graft campaign. Since 2018, Zhuang Rongwen, a deputy minister in China’s central propaganda department, has led the CAC. He attends the Wuzhen Internet Conference, but avoids the limelight, as do most senior Chinese bureaucrats. (Tony Munroe contributed reporting; Cate Cadell contributed further reporting; William Mallard edited the piece.)/n
