China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has published a draft of its "Management Regulations for the Security and Oversight of Communications Networks", aiming to enhance security of public communications networks and the Internet.

Under the new regulations, public communications and Internet networks managed by Chinese telecom operators and Internet domain name service providers should meet communications network security standards.

At the same time, communications network operators will be required to divide communications networks already in operation into discrete units, and then rate them, according to their importance to national and societal economic development, on a scale of one to five.

The regulations require communications network operating units to make better records in telecom management organizations; the operators should implement regular risk evaluations to eliminate major network security risks; the operators should backup important lines, equipment, systems and data of the communications network units in accordance to the standards; and they should set up monitoring systems to monitor the security of their networks.

Communications and Internet networks operators who fail to follow the regulations will be ordered to make rectifications and those who refuse to rectify will receive a warning and be fined up to CNY30,000.