Xi Jinping on Wednesday denounced internet “hegemony” and sought to promote China’s approach to the net in a challenge both to US dominance of online governance and western views of the web as a free forum for information exchange.

Speaking by video link to the World Internet Conference in the eastern city of Wuzhen, China’s president also promised to uphold “cyber sovereignty” and “more fair and equitable global internet governance”.

The annual event is used by Beijing as a platform to lend legitimacy to its strict approach to web censorship, as well as to portray the US, rather than China, as the country out of step with global norms in internet freedoms. Delegates this year included representatives of US tech groups such as LinkedIn, IBM, Microsoft and Qualcomm.