Radio Free Asia (RFA) recently reported that the Fifth World Internet Conference was held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, starting on November 7. Other than the CEO of Qualcomm, a U.S. chip maker, who attended the Conference and delivered a speech, no high-ranking officers from Silicon Valley showed up. Apparently, this was due to the trade war between China and the U.S. In fact, many of these companies were very upset about China’s continuous dishonest behavior, such as stealing intellectual property from them. This is one of the main triggering causes of the trade war. Some experts expressed the belief that it’s ironic for China, a country that blocks billions of netizens from freely accessing international websites, to host the international Internet conference year after year. Bill Xia, the President of a U.S. internet freedom product (Freegate) company, commented in an RFA interview that China has been hiding behind the ridiculous excuse of “internet sovereignty” to hammer freedom of speech and to apply tight controls over its own citizens.
Source: RFA Chinese, November 8, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/meiti/nu-11082018094230.html