Microsoft says there were more business opportunities in China in the last year

Technology giant Microsoft has seen more business opportunities in the Chinese market in the last year, a top company executive said on Monday

"For us, it has been even more opportunities than prior," said Alain Crozier, Microsoft's chairman and CEO for the Greater China region.

"First of all, we help Chinese companies do business abroad; this is one of the biggest streams of activity," Crozier told CNBC's Deirdre Bosa at the East Tech West conference in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, China.

Many foreign companies are also heading to China and looking to Microsoft to provide technological solutions that will work in the world's second largest economy as well as elsewhere, Crozier added.

His statements come as the U.S. and China remain locked in a bitter trade dispute.

"When we look at Microsoft, we try to work on what we can control," said Crozier.

"The one thing we do is to make sure that our business model and mission really help our customers achieve what they are trying to achieve with technology," said Crozier.

Microsoft remains committed to China. The company first set up R&D centers in China about 25 years ago, and opened its fourth research and development center in Shanghai in January, even amid the U.S.-China trade dispute, he said.

As for wider industry concerns about operating in China, Crozier said Microsoft is seen as a leader in good business practices with consistent principles globally.

"We have in terms of AI (artificial intelligence) and ethics, a set of principles around transparency and security and protection and so on and so forth, very important, we stick to that. We also in some areas (are) not providing the technology to some customers, no matter who those customers are, public or private; we don't," said Crozier.

"So we have decided that we will play a very strategic role providing our platform to our customers for them to build on top of, and we provide them with a set of technology, but sometimes we decide that we will not provide a set of technology to some of our customers to make sure this is not misused," he added.

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