BEIJING: China will investigate providers of important IT products and services to protect “national security” and “economic and social development”, the official Xinhua news agency said, amid a row over cyber spying with the United States.
Companies that don’t pass the checks will no longer be allowed to supply products and services in China, Xinhua cited the State Internet Information Office as saying. Products that don’t meet security requirements will be banned.
The likely consequences of the ruling were not immediately clear but it comes amid a heated dispute with the United States, after Washington charging five Chinese military officers with hacking US companies to steal trade secrets.
The Chinese media on Wednesday labelled the US government a “high-level hooligan”, while official in Beijing have accused Washington of “double standards” on issues of cyber spying. When asked which governments or businesses China is targeting with this move, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei declined to directly respond, while defending the measures being taken to vet companies providing IT products and services.
“The introduction of such a system will be the most effective legal basis for safeguarding China’s Internet security and will also have a significant role in promoting the construction of China as an Internet powerhouse,” he told a news briefing.
“China now accounts for the largest number of Internet users in the world,” he said.
China has also banned new central government computers from using Windows 8, Microsoft Corp’s latest operating system.
This was done because of security concerns around Windows 8, which exposes computers to monitoring and the risk of being controlled remotely, the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily newspaper reported, citing a US National Security Agency programme called Prism. Reuters
