CHINA’S rapid and robust development of the Internet and information technology industries has brought a host of tangible benefits to its people.

China first established access to the Internet in 1994. Since then, China has developed its Internet and information technology industries in leaps and bounds.

By December 2017, the number of Chinese netizens reached 772 million, of which 753 million reported primarily surfing the Internet via mobile phone, according to statistics released by the China Internet Network Information Center.

Overseas experts acknowledge that China’s rapid Internet development has also contributed in many ways to the development of the global Internet industry such as through hardware advancements and technical innovation.

“China plays a huge role in technology and innovation. So I think in an ideal world, countries like China will participate in the development of solutions,” Sally Wentworth, vice president of global policy at the U.S.-based Internet Society (ISOC), told Xinhua in a recent interview.

“Our extensive research clearly shows that just as when the Internet Society was founded 25 years ago, people now believe that the Internet’s core values still remain valid — that it must be global, open, secure, and used for the benefit of people everywhere in the world,” Wentworth said.

Thanks to China’s rapid Internet development, China has done a great job of promoting online financing and industrial upgrading, and combining the Internet with mobile communications, said Guo Yike, head of Data Science Institute of Imperial College London.

Experts also pointed out that China has a unique ability to deal with cybersecurity threats from around the world with its advanced hardware.

The Internet is a brilliant invention, but it “cannot be an area where illegality is allowed to simply exist in a way that it wouldn’t be in the real world,” said Robert Hannigan, former director of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

“Much computer software around the world is designed and manufactured in China. Thus China has been in a good position to assist the world to cope with cybersecurity threats. Because only through improving the security standards for both hardware and software can we build a safer cyber world,” Hannigan said.

Guo has been paying close attention to China’s Internet Plus strategy. He said there is “a large portion [within that strategy] where China has done extremely well.”

First proposed in 2015, Internet Plus — sometimes likened to the Information Superhighway championed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton in the 1990s — refers to the application of the Internet and other information technology in conventional industries that have previously operated offline.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in his 2015 Government Work Report that an action plan for the strategy aims to integrate mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things with modern manufacturing to encourage the healthy development of e-commerce, industrial networks, and Internet banking, and to help Internet companies increase their international presence.

“I think China’s development in recent years has truly led the world in revolutionizing the business sector by adopting the next generation Internet technologies,” Guo said. (Xinhua)