国内英语新闻:China, ASEAN to beef up crackdown on cybercrime

NANNING, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- An official with the Ministry of Public Security on Monday called on China and ASEAN to strengthen cooperation in the fight against cross-border cybercrime.

"There are new trends in cybercrime, for example terrorist cells using the Internet to spread extremism, recruit members, plot attacks and conduct money laundering," said Zhong Zhong, deputy chief of the ministry's Internet Security Bureau.

Addressing the China-ASEAN Information Harbor Forum held in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Zhong said more than 90 percent of online fraud and gambling sites that target Chinese citizens use overseas servers and virtual private networks (VPN).

Zhong said China-ASEAN cooperation has yielded results.

In a joint-police operation against online gambling between China, Vietnam and Myanmar in 2014, 119 suspects were arrested and 64 million yuan (10 million U.S. dollars) was frozen, he said.

Xu Feng, an official with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said China and ASEAN should promote the establishment of an international law on cybercrime.

Lu Wei, minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), said China was ready to work with ASEAN to crackdown on cyberterrorism and cybercrime, protect privacy and information security and promote the establishment of a multilateral, democratic and transparent international internet governance system.

Hiem Phommachanh, minister of Post and Telecommunications of Laos, agreed that China and ASEAN should improve Internet security cooperation and efforts to counter cybercrime.

Mei Jianming, a professor with the People's Public Security University of China, lauded China and ASEAN's joint efforts to fight crimes such as drugs and human trafficking but added that a new mechanism was needed to address cybercrime.