Long Guoqiang, Vice President and research fellow of the Development Research Center of the State Council of China, hosts the event. [photo/wuzhenwic.org]

The International High-Level Think-Tank Forum on the Internet was held at Wuzhen on November 17, as a sub forum of the third World Internet Conference (WIC) hosted by China.

Zheng Bijian, chairman of Associate of China Institute for Innovation & Development Strategy, speaks on China’s peaceful rise in the Internet era. [photo/wuzhenwic.org]

The theme of the forum was “Building a Peaceful, Secure, Open and Cooperative Cyberspace”. Long Guoqiang, Vice President and research fellow of the Development Research Center of the State Council of China, hosted the event.

The forum was divided into three sessions. Session one was themed “global think tanks dialogue in the internet era—listening to the wisdom”, with 13 guests delivering keynote speeches in the morning. The second session was a closed-door meeting “China-US think tank dialogue: Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies and Brookings Institution”. The third session was “Chinese and Arab States’ think tanks dialogue in cyberspace”.

In the first session, Long said that this was the first time that WIC has held a think tank forum. “The Internet is changing our way of work and living, and we need to think about how to regulate and manage it well and lower the risks of any threats and uncertainties it might bring”, said Long. The forum aims to discuss how to build up a peaceful, safe, open, and cooperative online community.

Zheng Bijian, chairman of Associate of China Institute for Innovation & Development Strategy, speaks on China’s peaceful rise in the Internet era. [photo/wuzhenwic.org]

Zheng Bijian, chairman of Associate of China Institute for Innovation & Development Strategy, spoke on China’s peaceful rise in the Internet era. John L. Thornton, Co-Chairman of the Brookings Institution, spoke on “the effect of think-tanks in the new age”, and outlined the cooperation between China and the US in cyber security. Professor Rasigan Maharajh from Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa spoke on how to promote knowledge sharing on the Internet. Professor Paul Cornish, associate director of Oxford University’s Global Cyber Security Capacity Center and professor of the Oxford Martin School, talked about how to evaluate harm from the Internet. Arun Mohan Sukumar, head of the Cyber Security and Internet Governance Initiative, Observer Research Foundation, spoke on the stability and security of the Internet in the Asia-Pacific region.

After the 13 guest speeches, Long concluded that the Internet is a double-edged sword. It needs to make sure that it is safe, stable, and open, and think tanks play a unique role in this process.