Google and Facebook stay away but smaller US firms scout for business at China’s World Internet Conference

This year’s attendees include the regional presidents of US Internet hardware makers Honeywell, Qualcomm, Intel, and Cisco Systems, as well as software and cloud services provider Microsoft. But US Internet giants such as Google, Twitter, Facebook and Apple did not take part. — SCMP

Many big technology names from the United States stayed away but some smaller American firms showed up for China’s main Internet conference on the weekend, as a trade war expands into a technology conflict.

The state-run World Internet Conference, also known as the Wuzhen Summit, has been held in the canal town near Shanghai since 2014 as a platform for the Chinese government to promote its idea of global internet governance and export its own highly restricted Internet model to other countries.