Could China’s strict cyber controls gain international acceptance?
- Beijing recommends right to control internet and tech for ‘social stability’, and make cyberspace a branch of sovereignty
- Growing influence could help it shape international cybersecurity rules alongside countries that favour free, open cyberspace
When an open-ended working group met at the United Nations in New York in mid-September to discuss the future of cyberspace it did so with little fanfare.
Just seven member states had submitted working papers to that meeting outlining their vision for what countries should and should not be allowed to do to each other and their own people in the online world.
One of the countries to put forward its position was China, which used the forum to make what observers said was its most important UN submission on the topic yet – a detailed vision of its style of cyber governance in which states have sovereign right to maintain strict controls on internet and technology infrastructure for “social stability”. Under such a system, states have the right to censor, collect data, and restrict online access within their borders.
The submission comes as the United Nations has created two groups tasked with spending the next one to two years exploring what frameworks could best maintain peace and security online, a framework that Beijing hopes to help shape.
It is all part of a broader push by China to try to influence the global norms for cyberspace, pushing back against the competing international support for a free and open online world as cyberattacks, digital espionage and online influence campaigns grow as security concerns.
China’s efforts to promote its vision of cyber governance at the UN did not go unnoticed.