China’s Internet safer and cleaner after two years of efforts

After two years of efforts to enhance cybersecurity, China's Internet has been significantly purified, with citizens' interests better safeguarded, specialists say.

Thursday marked the second anniversary of Chinese President Xi Jinping's speech in which he called for enhancing the development of the Internet and harnessing it for the benefit of the country and the people, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Xi, who also heads China's central Internet security and informatization leading group, made the remarks at a symposium on cybersecurity on April 19, 2016.

Cleaner online environment

The country has moved to straighten out irregularities on the popular live-streaming and short video websites and applications to create a clean online environment.

China has moved to straighten out irregularities on the popular live-streaming and short video websites and applications to create a clean online environment.

In early April, the State Administration of Radio and Television and Cyberspace Administration of China asked news website Toutiao and live-streaming website Kuaishou to remove obscene and violent content, and close the user accounts that uploaded such content.

According to CCTV, in 2017, representatives of 2003 websites were summoned by authorities and 22,587 illegal websites were closed.

Safer online environment

As a country that has the largest number of Internet users at 772 million, China is facing a more severe situation in terms of cybersecurity.

In order to create a safer online environment, the Cyber Security Law went into effect on June 1, 2017.

Passed in November 2016 at a bimonthly session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee after a third reading, the law is designed to safeguard China's cyberspace sovereignty, national security, public interest, as well as the rights and interests of citizens, legal persons and other organizations, said the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) in a statement.

The Cyber Security Law of China goes into effect on June 1, 2017.

"The basic legal system of cybersecurity has been established in China, and law enforcement has become more experienced and effective in the past years," Wang Sixin, a media law professor at the Beijing-based Communication University of China, told the Global Times on Thursday.

The independence and controllability of technology are seen as key to cyberspace security. In recent years, homegrown technology such as the world's fastest supercomputer Sunway TaihuLight, the quantum communication satellite Mozi, 5G Internet, and the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System have also provided support to the country’s cybersecurity.

(CGTN)