China is leading the global trend towards cyber sovereignty, a norm based on the use of technology to control what sort of information can be accessed and exchanged within a national boundary and by whom. Several recent reports shed light on these practices and their diffusion around the world. This week, Sam Ju published a report for the Open Technology Fund titled, “Blocked by Numbers: The Impact of Real-Name Registration Policies on Transnational Access to Chinese Social Media Apps.” The report shows how real-name registration (RNR) policies create an “ideological security firewall” that helps the Chinese government chill dissent and reshape online discourse, not just for users in China but also those in other countries, thereby extending its spheres of influence abroad. Here are some key findings from the report:
Identifiability requirements are now common for transnational users of Chinese-developed social media apps (roughly 75% of such apps now enforce identifiability requirements for overseas users).
The implementation and enforcement of RNR policies mandated by the Chinese government has created significant barriers to access for both domestic and international audiences.
From 2015 to 2023, apps influenced by RNR-related access barriers experienced a pronounced decline in global downloads (with an estimated 14.1 million downloads prevented during the period).
RNR-related access barriers on Chinese social media platforms are not uniformly enforced across geographies—enabling China to draw new digital borders between spheres of influence.
The regional variability of access barrier enforcement potentially reflects an ongoing calibration of China’s political and economic calculation of the risks/gains associated with an open exchange of online information for a given region or user base. [Source]
Russia is another powerful state that is considered to champion cyber sovereignty. Comparing these two cases, Liliya Khasanova and Katharin Tai published an article last week in the Journal of Cyber Policy titled, “Shades of authoritarian digital sovereignty: divergences in Russian and Chinese data localisation regimes.” The article identifies similarities and differences between Russian and Chinese approaches to internet governance, and it concludes that the Chinese approach is relatively more fragmented, responsive, and economically driven than that of Russia:
The Russian and Chinese approaches to data localisation and cross-border data transfers clearly share important similarities, such as the risk of selective enforcement, the creation of institutional bottlenecks in the approval process for outbound data transfers, and the prominence of national security concerns. However, there are also important regulatory and institutional differences between the two data localisation regimes. Notably, we identify: (a) a highly centralised regulatory landscape in Russia contrasted with a more fragmented one in China; (b) indications of responsiveness to stakeholder critiques of draft regulations in China while Russian laws were passed in a more top-down manner; and (c) a stronger prominence of economic interest in cross-border transfers in Chinese regulation, compared to a singular emphasis on regime security in Russia.
Even if their behaviour in international politics might make it look like they have a shared approach to sovereignty in information space, policymakers and other actors should be careful not to make this assumption with regards to data governance, but instead engage with each actor based on their specific approaches: the more centralised nature of the Russian approach makes it easier for the state to impose sudden and radical changes, while the higher level of institutional fragmentation in China requires external actors to engage with and understand the policy positions of several distinct domestic institutions and be aware of potential spill-over effects from inter-institutional conflicts. The comparatively higher responsiveness to corporate actors in the Chinese rulemaking process and the government’s willingness to even revise existing rules at times show that there is still value in providing that feedback to regulators, even though it might go ignored, while there are fewer chances for this in Russia. Importantly, the direct impact of economic incentives due to China’s integration into the world economy, such as an enduring interest in not just restricting but also enabling cross-border data flows in legislation and enforcement, shows that the Chinese government still responds to these incentives at times. Politicians calling to ‘derisk’ or ‘decouple’ their economies from the Chinese one should bear in mind that one cost of such a policy might be making it much cheaper for the Chinese government to adopt more aggressive, selectively targeted localisation policies, as seen in the case of Russia. [Source]
Xuechen Chen and Xinchuchu Gao published an article in International Affairs last week titled, “Norm diffusion in cyber governance: China as an emerging norm entrepreneur?” The article demonstrates that China has diffused its cyber norms on regional and international levels by relying on a combination of socialization and positive incentives that revolve around the values of cyber sovereignty, multilateralism, and the balance between security and development:
By investigating the substance of China’s cyber norm cluster, as well as the mechanisms through which it externalizes its cyber norms, this study problematizes the conventional scholarly discussions that have focused primarily on Beijing’s promotion of single norms through a single mechanism. We argue that the substance of China’s cyber norms can be better conceptualized as a norm cluster by taking into consideration the tripartite structure of problems, values and appropriate behaviours. Specifically, driven by its dissatisfaction with the myriad problems it has identified in the existing normative structure of global cyber governance, Beijing has sought to promote three core values—cyber sovereignty, multilateralism and the balance between security and development. Our analysis also depicts the multifaceted nature of these norms, highlighting the evolving and dynamic characteristics of China’s normative position in cyber governance. Furthermore, by delving into the norm-diffusion mechanisms, we reveal that China has utilized a dynamic combination of socialization and positive incentive strategies to externalize its cyber norms. For policy-makers and policy analysts, a more nuanced investigation and a deeper understanding of the diverse nature of China’s cyber-governance norms and behaviours could facilitate a better comprehension of the rationale and normative considerations that underpin China’s rapidly developing policy formation and external strategies in the realm of cyber governance. [Source]
The Chinese government has taken advantage of international forums to diffuse its cyber sovereignty norms. One such forum is the World Internet Conference (WIC) that will take place next week. In a WIC seminar in September, its chairman and the director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, Zhuang Rongwen, called on the international community to “respect cyber sovereignty, practice true multilateralism, [and] formulate norms for cyberspace governance.” Similar points were written into the latest Action Plan of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in October. Alfred Bulakali and Michael Caster from Article 19 described how the FOCAC Action Plan’s call for cooperation in digital infrastructure and governance demonstrates the proliferation of Chinese norms around cyber sovereignty, despite being framed in terms of multilateralism:
Another area of support outlined that is worth noting is China’s commitment to establish a China-Africa digital technology cooperation centre, which did not appear in the previous FOCAC Action Plan, and deserves greater understanding for its potential to further export China’s digital governance norms.
[…] In particular, China and Africa agreed to strengthen cooperation on capacity–building relating to AI and to promote exchanges, including as relates to the governance of cross-border data flows, new technologies, and internet laws and regulations. In pledging cooperation in these areas, the Action Plan explicitly references the Initiative on Jointly Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace, noted above, the Global Initiative on Data Security, and the Global AI Governance Initiative, which China put forward last year.
[…] As ARTICLE 19 has pointed out elsewhere, such cooperation initiatives have tended to focus on the normalisation of China’s model of digital governance, which favours centralised state control, censorship and surveillance, and opacity at odds with fundamental internet freedom principles and international human rights.
[…The] coordination, information and experience-sharing on such matters is likely to promote China’s more authoritarian model of cybersecurity governance as the best practice to be emulated on a national level in Africa and normalised at the global level. [Source]
