China and Global Cyber Governance: Main Principles and Debates

Contesting the Digital World Order

“…The US continues to use this argument in support of the multistakeholder model (Kruger, 2016) while Chinese academics claim that this model increases the power of the US to force its will on other nations (Arsène, 2016). China, therefore, supports the formation of an intergovernmental agency "in which it will have greater power and remove US hegemony" (Galloway and He, 2014: 86), a statement corroborated by other scholars (Cai, 2018;Liu, 2012). To reach this goal, China has learned to moderate its stance in order to avoid alienation in decision-making processes (Galloway and He, 2014: 75).…”

“…The Chinese government sees solving its domestic Internet governance issues as a necessary prerequisite to participating in the GIG regime (Cai, 2018: 69). In China, domestic stability and national security are more important than individual freedoms, and this influences the government's position on GIG norms (Jiang, 2010;Cai, 2018). Scholars have also stressed the importance of domestic structures and political contestation in national role theory (Brummer and Thies, 2015;Cantir and Kaarbo, 2012), which is the central framework of this article.…”

“…China believes nations should hold the decision-making power in the GIG regime (Cai, 2018;Galloway and He, 2014;Jiang, 2010). This model of governance, known as cyber sovereignty, comes from the traditional Westphalian concept of sovereignty (Demchak and Dombrowski, 2013).…”

“…To reach this goal, China has learned to moderate its stance in order to avoid alienation in decision-making processes (Galloway and He, 2014: 75). The Chinese government continues to adapt its strategy through moderation and adoption of some aspects of the liberal, multistakeholder model (Hart and Johnson, 2019), albeit with a distinctively Chinese interpretation (Cai, 2018). Yet, the US still dominates the GIG regime, and some believe the system simply cannot be changed because it would involve adapting the policies of all nations to a single locale (Mueller, 2010: 186).…”

“…Deng states that, for China, sovereignty "constitutes the key ingredient for a truly new world order of equality, peace, and justice," (Deng, 2001). Therefore, China continues to promote multilateralism in favour of states, democracy in terms of international decision-making processes, and transparency in a way that makes the rules of GIG available and applicable to all states (Cai, 2018). China does not want to overhaul the entire GIG regime, but rather to tweak the system in the favour of states.…”