BEIJING: Earlier this month, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced a new initiative to establish global standards on data security.

The Chinese government’s Global Data Security Initiative was launched to set new rules for inter-government network governance and to support an open and transparent business environment for the digital economy.

China’s initiative has eight key points including not using technology to impair other countries’ critical infrastructure or steal data, and making sure service providers don’t install backdoors in their products and illegally obtain user data.

Wang stated that although countries varied in their national conditions and development stage of internet, they need to intensify pragmatic cooperation, build up mutual trust, and deepen cooperation with one another rather than pursuing unilateralism in the name of national security.

The initiative comes as the U.S. continues to put pressure on China’s largest technology companies and convince countries around the world to block them.

“We have not and will not ask Chinese companies to transfer data overseas to the government in breach of other countries’ laws,” Wang confirmed.

Companies like Huawei have already confirmed that it will never install backdoors in its products or services, or illegally obtain user data. Huawei has further encouraged governments and stakeholders to work closely with each other based on this initiative to strengthen dialogue and cooperation on issues related to technical standards and common rules, and establish unified security and technical standards.