Two years ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave an important speech on the development of cyber security and informatization, outlining the roadmap for China to become a major internet power.

The speech has led to booming development of China's internet industry. Remarkable progress has been made in many of the bottleneck fields Xi pinpointed.

Xi stressed that developing core technologies must be one of the most important tasks. He emphasized that market volume and money can't provide China with core technologies, so we must spare no effort in developing technologies of our own.

The recent trade tensions between China and the United States, as well as the U.S. ban on sales to China's leading telecom equipment maker ZTE, have testified Xi's great foresight. 

The recent incidents are warning signals, but they may also greatly accelerate our pace of turning China into an internet power. The U.S. sales ban will only prompt China to pool more resources to develop core technologies, thus reducing our reliance on U.S. imports and turning China into a powerful competitor in the market. 

To rise to various challenges, China needs to strengthen work in the following fields to accelerate the pace of becoming an internet power. 

First, China must consolidate its industrial foundation and continue to take an active part in global competition and cooperation. Production capacity and products are the core drivers of growth for the cyber security and information technology industries. The market volume and production capacity of a country determine how strong its voice can be in the world. The U.S. ban will have little impact on us if we have substitute production capacities, whether they be in China or in other countries. Therefore, China should continue to attract foreign investments and improve its own industrial systems.

Second, more emphasis should be put on scientific and technological research. It's important to have top talent stay and work in China. The United States can dominate the cyber security and information technology industries because it has accumulated human resources, knowledge and educational resources for decades. China still lags behind developed countries in this regard, and this is something we should strive to solve.

Third, military and commercial research efforts should be integrated, with military research institutions playing a leading role in technological development. As a matter of fact, cyber security and information technology industry was originally a military industry. It came into being when the Pentagon applied information technology to its command and combat systems. Google, Apple, Facebook and many other world-famous internet companies have received financial or technical support from the U.S. military to some extent. China can borrow this positive experience and promote further integration of its own military and commercial research efforts.

Li Zheng is an associate researcher at the Institute of American Studies of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

The article was written in Chinese and translated by Chen Xia.

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