Western media have once again vilified China following its latest move to manage its cyberspace. Some virtual private network (VPN) providers were reportedly blocked after an "upgrade" of the Great Firewall, a system devised to filter online information on the Chinese mainland. VPN software is used to circumvent Internet censorship by encryption and rerouting.

China's efforts to ramp up regulation in cyberspace have come under increasingly severe condemnation. Some Western defenders of free speech have even pretentiously compared China's endeavors to employing a "closed-Internet" policy, an analogy of the "closed-door" policy initiated by China's Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), which resulted in China's backwardness for centuries.

Is the Internet being "closed" in the most populous and energetic country? The answer, categorically, is no. China has no intention of detaching itself from the information age.

According to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2013, China's information industry, whose massive size was worth 12.4 trillion yuan ($1.98 trillion), contributes 22 percent of its GDP. In 2014, Wuzhen, a city in East China's Zhejiang Province, was chosen as the permanent site for the World Internet Conference. Besides, China's most globally well-known enterprises, such as Alibaba and Baidu, are Internet-based. Such rapid development and global reputation cannot be earned by a country which has cut access to the Internet.

Cyberspace is a virgin land where freedom can spiral out of control. Regulation is badly needed as various countries are striving to manage the Internet in the way that best suits their own country. Since online information flows with disregard to national borders, it is a natural response from each government to exercise its cyber sovereignty and set up limits for information communication. Even in the US, which boasts the most liberal Internet environment, sites such as Facebook do not hesitate to ban accounts that they think are inappropriate.

China is still figuring out how to strike its own balance between protecting cyber sovereignty and securing freedom in communication. China needs both Internet openness and Internet security, on which the government and public has consensus.

The West has almost developed the habit of making a fuss whenever the Chinese government takes new actions in cyberspace regulation, cursing China for cracking down on free speech or implementing a closed-door policy.

However, their criticisms seem wholly unconvincing at a time when China is becoming more associated with the outside world.