China, the world's second-largest source of unsolicited emails, agreed on Monday to join an international effort led by the U.S. and the U.K. to combat spam by adopting the London Action Plan on Spam Enforcement Collaboration, ChinaTechNews reports. At a ceremony attended by U.S. Federal Trade Commissioner Jon Leibowitz and U.K. Ambassador Christopher Hum, China announced its decision to reverse earlier policies and make fighting spam a priority.

"We have long been keen to engage with China on the issue of spam," Techworld quotes Alun Michael, the UK's e-commerce minister, as saying.

According to Spamhaus, China is the second-largest source of spam, generating some 20 percent of unsolicited emails worldwide, writes Silicon.com. The United States is first.

Union Network Beijing, which is China's representative to the London Action Plan , will be the country's point of contact for the international effort.

The Plan calls for increased investigative training, the establishment of points of contact in each agency to respond quickly and effectively to enforcement inquiries, and the creation of an international working group on spam enforcement.

China, has long been unwilling to face up to the spam originating from Beijing and other large cities, mostly from so-called zombie computers taken over by spammers outside China and used to send out spam without the knowledge of their owners.