[Diplomat] China and Russia Want to Rule the Global Internet
China and Russia Want to Rule the Global Internet
Their model of surveillance and censorship threatens a free, open, and secure future internet.
As the Winter Olympics kicked off in Beijing, the Chinese and Russian presidents, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, stood in unity to offer mutual support and to challenge the dominance of the U.S. and Europe. There is more at stake in their renewed close partnership than NATO expansion and the crisis in Ukraine, or the supply of natural gas to China from Russia.
The joint statement that the two countries issued in Beijing proclaimed their support for the “internationalization of Internet governance” and “equal rights of countries to regulate the world-wide web.” They pledged to “deepen bilateral cooperation in international information security,” declared support for an “international convention on countering the use of information technologies for criminal purposes,” and advocated greater participation in the International Telecommunications Union, the United Nations specialized agency for information and telecommunications technologies, in addressing these issues.
The world should be alarmed by such resolutions from two nations known for censoring the internet, banning social media and messaging platforms, putting dissidents in jail over comments posted online, and launching misinformation campaigns to meddle in elections in other countries, including the U.S.
At the Beijing Winter Olympics, athletes and journalists had to make use of officially provided wi-fi at designated hotels and venues in order to access the “unobstructed” internet, including services like Twitter, YouTube or Facebook, all banned in China. The mobile app provided by Beijing authorities to all participants – My2022 – was found by independent researchers to be a Trojan horse that could secretly harvest users’ data, which, under Chinese laws, can be passed on to the state.
In Russia, Russian authorities successfully demanded the removal of a voting app created by prominent dissident Alexei Navalny from the app stores of both Apple and Google, alleging that it contained “illegal content.” The country also furthered its censorship efforts to block the use of encryption technology through the Tor browser and several other virtual private network services in 2021, a year that Human Rights Watch called the “year of doubling down on Internet censorship.”
These acts of censorship and surveillance speak clearly about what kind of vision of internet governance China and Russia have in mind. Their interpretation of internet information security is about the security of their regimes, not of the security and privacy of users inside or outside of their countries. An internet governance framework with such toxic underlying values of censorship and surveillance should be extremely horrifying to anyone.
Particularly for China, however, such attempts to influence and indeed dominate global technology standards and governance are nothing new. Over the last few decades, China has invested heavily to participate in and influence global technology standard bodies. In November 2021, the Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council published the National Standardization Development Outline, spelling out goals and actions for “China Standards 2035.” These “China standards” are by all means meant to be made global.
The European Union has been on high alert about China’s ambition, and recently outlined a “more aggressive approach” to setting global standards, in order to ensure its leadership in development areas such as internet technologies, artificial intelligence and green technologies. To the Europeans, it was clear that China’s standard-setting exercises at the international level were meant to provide a competitive edge to China and its companies.
International technological standards-setting and internet governance frameworks are complex and diverse. It is also important to remember that traditionally standard settings are led by the private sector and research communities, not by state actors, for good reasons. Chinese and Russian representatives should have their seats at the table, but the world must be extremely cautious about such standard-setting processes being taken over by companies controlled by autocratic regimes, tasked with their governments’ political agenda. It would be even worse if such autocratic governments are to directly steer and dominate such processes.
The EU has disclosed that they would seek to cooperate with U.S. authorities to monitor emerging standards and to unify the positions from both sides of the Atlantic through regular meetings at the Trade and Technology Council. Clearly, the urgency of autocratic competition means that the two sides must coordinate at a much higher administrative level. However, the present animosity between the Western “big tech” firms and their governments may threaten to divert the Western governments’ attention from the need to cooperate on the global stage of standards and governance – between the private and public sectors, and across nations.
Moreover, just bringing Europe and the U.S. together may not be enough, as players from Asia, Africa, and the rest of the world must be involved, as well as the private sector and civil societies, in setting the standards and governance that will shape the future internet and its next-generation enabling technologies. Only than can the world build a dam against the tides of censorship and surveillance from the emerging alliance of autocratic states.
We must do so to defend and ensure a free, open, secure, and trusted future internet that supports the principles of democracy and human rights by being more open and inclusive, and differentiate that vision against the governance model promoted by China and Russia, one that is designed to censor and surveil in the pretense of security.
Published: The Diplomat
https://thediplomat.com/2022/02/china-and-russia-want-to-rule-the-global-internet/
[ISOC] How Cambodia’s Internet gateway will harm the Internet
How Cambodia’s Internet gateway will harm the Internet
By Adrian Wan, Senior Manager, Policy and Advocacy and Charles Mok, Global Digital Policy Incubator
Cambodia should evaluate the impact of its plans to route all Internet traffic through a “national Internet gateway” on the Internet.
While the deadline for Internet service providers and telecommunications companies to connect to the gateway had been set for 16 February 2022, the plans have reportedly been delayed to an unspecified date.
But the delay does nothing to change the nature of this gateway—it only pushes worrying effects off into the future. In fact, in a newly published Internet Impact Brief, we find that the gateway would undermine critical elements that make the Internet an open, globally connected, secure, and trustworthy resource for everyone.
The national gateway will manage all local and international Internet traffic—both incoming and outgoing. According to the decree, it aims to “strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the national revenue collection” and support the “protection of national security, and preservation of social order, culture, and national tradition.” Much of the substance of the decree, however, is undefined and unspecified.
Any cross-border networks that are currently authorized by the Cambodian government have to be rerouted and updated by the deadline. In addition, all network operators must connect to the gateway by this date, which has facilities in only four locations in the country.
Severe Impact on Global Internet Reach
The Cambodian telecoms authority will designate providers to run the national gateway that funnels all Internet traffic in and out of the country, so that no other networks can access the global Internet directly or independently. This will severely impact a network’s global reach and limit collaboration between Cambodia and the rest of the world by putting up barriers across our Internet ecosystem.
As networks are not allowed to interconnect where it makes most technical and commercial sense to them, the result is likely to be significant degradation of network performance and increase in costs.
Given most of the Internet traffic in the country is driven by content from overseas companies, like Meta (Facebook), Google, and TikTok, with only a small amount generated locally, Cambodia’s talents, innovations, and technological development will likely be stunted as a result.
Considering the wide range of responsibilities the decree gives gateway operators—including facilitating public revenue collection and protecting national security, among others—content passing through the gateway will almost certainly be intercepted and inspected. Coupled with the mandate that Internet service providers, including telecommunications companies, should verify user identities, and gateway operators should keep users’ technical records for a year, there is a high likelihood that the privacy of all Cambodians will be seriously compromised.
While the substance and timing of the national gateway’s implementation remains unclear, its purposes and structure clearly present risks that could greatly weaken the ability of anyone in the country to preserve the confidentiality and integrity of their communications, for instance, by weakening or breaking encryption.
The harsh penalties will likely make gateway operators take precautions to not be held liable for targeted data that passes through their networks. They would probably implement technical measures to block online resources, but these techniques typically “over-block” legitimate content, resulting in collateral damage and increased restrictions on the Internet.
Since no other networks in the country can legally access the global Internet directly or independently, innovations in cross-border connectivity, such as Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, which can connect remote, rural, or underserved areas, will be unable to operate flexibly within and across Cambodia’s borders. Other innovative technologies will be curtailed by technical restrictions of the gateway and not reach their full potential.
Poorer Quality of Service and Restricted Access
All these measures, and more detailed in the Internet Impact Brief, will not just affect Cambodia’s Internet infrastructure. For end users, it may also mean poorer quality of service in general, as their experience online, such as delivery of broadcast video and device-to-device calling, will likely be slower and less stable.
These changes will restrict Cambodia’s access to global technologies and knowledge and isolate it in the digital age. The gateway will hurt all businesses and all Internet users across Southeast Asia and beyond.
We call on the Cambodian authority to undertake a full and robust Internet impact assessment to identify the potential harms to the Internet resulting from the gateway.
It should actively encourage networks in the country to be freely connected to the global Internet, and network operators to collaborate to provide optimal quality of service to users, to unleash the country’s massive potential in our digital age.
The choices we make today will impact the Internet’s future. Its trajectory will depend on all of us making informed decisions that prioritize social development, economic prosperity, and innovations that amplify the best of humanity.
Published by Internet Society
https://www.freiheit.org/taiwan/making-chinas-future-internet
Internet Impact Brief – Cambodia National Internet Gateway
https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/doc/2022/internet-impact-brief-cambodia-national-internet-gateway/
[FNF] The Making of China’s Future Internet
The Making of China’s Future Internet
A Closer Look on the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan on Digital Economy
As U.S.-China technology competition heats up and China increasingly cracks down on its own digital sectors, there has been growing interest outside China in scrutinizing its seemingly unending array of announcements of new digital legislations and regulations on cybersecurity, data security and privacy, as well as others areas. But any attempt to understand where China’s strategic development is heading would not be complete without examining China’s state planning strategy documents.
Indeed, as a centrally planned economy, Five-Year Plans have been issued by the central government of the People’s Republic of China since 1953. The latest, the Fourteenth Plan for 2021-2025, was adopted on March 11, 2021, generally pointing the nation toward a “new development stage,” signified by measures to strengthen the “internal cycle” for consolidating the domestic economy and social development. However, such tactics should not be mistaken for an overall inward-looking strategic outlook for its future development goals. In particular, China’s ambition toward technology, including its Internet and digital economy development blueprint, remains highly ambitious with global aspirations.
China’s aspiration for global influence and, potentially, even dominance in this regard can be evidently seen from this latest Five-Year Plan on Digital Economy Development, issued by the State Council on December 12, 2021. Such planning documents by the State Council or various official agencies are common in China. They are typically released after each main Five-Year Plan is issued. Their aim is to elaborate on the sectoral guidance for specific policy areas. The typical hallmark of such state planning documents must be the “guiding thought” of the time. Here it is the “new age of Xi Jinping socialism thoughts with Chinese characteristics,” and "thoroughly realizing the spirit of the (most recent) Chinese Communist Party Congress.”
Digital Economy Dominance by Xi Jinping thought
So, what is digital economy as far as China’s state planning is concerned?
It begins with the information infrastructure that enables the “ABCD” technologies — Artificial Intelligence (A), Blockchain (B), Cloud Computing (C) and Data (D) — with key past accomplishments from the last five-year period, such as China boasting “the largest fiber optics and 4G communications network in the world,” as well as strong adoption in e-commerce and e-government, and from financial technology to online learning, and so on. China’s digital economy core industry is said to have added as much as 7.8% in value to its GDP.
While both the increasing global competition and the isolation from the west must occupy a substantial part in shaping China’s digital development strategy, the document predictably did not spell out the obvious, but admitted that “under the influence of multiple external factors,” China’s domestic digital economy faced an environment of “immense changes.”
In view of the “new environment,” China’s state planners identified four observations that would guide their strategic objectives and actions to follow. First, developing its digital economy sector will be “the tactic of choice to ride the next wave of technological revolution and opportunities from industry transformation.” Second, the “data factor” will be the “core engine to deepen the development of the digital economy.” Third, “digitized services will be an important avenue to fulfil an improved way of life for the citizens.” And, finally, “regulating for a healthy and sustainable digital economy must be urgently demanded,” in order for the digital economy to develop in a “high quality manner.”
The targets — from broad goals to specific measurements
Accordingly, the planning document listed five broad development targets:
1. The preliminary structure of the factor market for data will be established.
This indicates the full recognition and understanding by the Chinese Central Government of data as a critical factor of production for economic activities, in addition to traditional factors such as capital, raw materials, labor, land, and so on. This means, that data is being put under the same level of centralized planning, control and regulation as other factors of production. China clearly aims at quickly becoming the pioneer in the experimentation of the regulatory and governance framework for data trading and exchange, leveraging its market scale in data generated in many critical areas such as financial services, transportation, logistics, and others. China is aiming for the first-mover advantage: to set the standards ahead of its competitors, such as the U.S. and Europe, in order to shape and influence global compliance and the rules to be established in other parts of the world.
2. Digital transformation for production and service industries as well as agriculture will enter a “new stage”.
This is a recurrent message that was prominently emphasized in other planning documents, such as the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan on Software and Information Technology Service Industry Development, issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in November 2021, where advancements in industrial automation and software defined infrastructure were repeatedly called for. This is not only consistent with the goals of the “Made in China 2025” national policy but also clearly addresses a critical shortcoming perceived by many on China’s labor-intensive industries that have neither been able to utilize high technology in production, nor become a sufficiently competitive player in high-tech products such as semiconductors.
3. The level of industrialization of the digital sector will be significantly escalated.
For years, China has advocated for the development of its domestically driven innovation capabilities, including for digital services and products. Aided by its huge domestic market, many leading tech firms have achieved significant scale and profits, but its overall level of real innovation has been up for debates. With the ongoing tech crackdowns in China, its digital sector, especially the platform players, will continue to face extremely challenging environments, both at home and abroad. It is widely believed that China will attempt to mobilize its state efforts to redirect innovation to the “deep tech” areas, such as semiconductors, advanced artificial intelligence, high-powered cloud computing, quantum computing, etc.
4. Digital public services will be more universally accessible and equitable.
Despite the high level of mobile and broadband penetration in China and the wide adoption of some applications especially in sectors like e-payments, the digital divide remains an issue for a large country with a wide and widening income gap among its people. Calls to continually close the digital divide will suitably echo Xi Jinping’s “Common Prosperity” slogan and objective.
5. The governance system for the digital economy will be optimized.
Here the Chinese characteristics of governance are clearly on display, with a system that will continue to be singularly led by government at all levels, with a model of “diversified participation, protected by the rule of law.” The regulatory regimes for the digital sphere will be “perfected,” with an emphasis on the improvement in the “security” of the digital economy. Such description echoes the narrative of China’s political system and national security, which dictates that the digital governance system will firmly be in the control of the Chinese Central Government and the Party.
Blockchain-Based Service Networks and Bandwith Blockade - From Targets to Actions
In upgrading China’s information network infrastructure, the related plans are the most extensive and wide-ranging, covering domestic fiber networks and international underseas fiber optics cables to support data center clusters across the country, as well as satellite communications to improve the country’s global positioning capabilities in support of its spatial information infrastructure improvements.
A number of projects that received attention recently can be seen as China’s effort to accomplish its digital economy and information network infrastructure planning. For instance, China will build its first “free trade port for data” with an investment of US$5 billion in the southern city of Nansha, in Guangdong Province. Nansha will act as a hub of cross-border data transfer and underseas cables, possibly through collaborating with China’s Belt and Road partner countries. The concept is derived from China’s “free trade zones” in recent decades that have been offering favorable tax and other legal treatments for cross-border trading of goods. China has in the past attempted to duplicate this concept to the service sector, with limited success, and is only now extending the application to data exchange, which will be critical for firms, both domestic and foreign, to navigate the rigid control of data flows, particularly after the enactment of the Data Security Law.
The Nansha free data port can also be regarded in part as a response to the U.S. authorities’ position to disapprove underseas cable projects with American involvement to Hong Kong, because of China’s increasing control over the special administrative region, since 2020, beginning with disallowing the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) to land in Hong Kong. The underseas cable project, with investment from American Internet giants Google and Facebook, would have been the first direct link between Los Angeles and Hong Kong, but eventually had to be rerouted to terminate in Taiwan, in order to obtain U.S. approval.
With no expansion of commercial underseas cable capacity in the foreseeable future for both China and Hong Kong with any involvement from firms from the U.S. or from other countries likely to be influenced by U.S. policies, Chinese authorities will have to step in to counter the “bandwidth blockade” and address its future capacity demand growth, seeking cooperation with its Belt and Road Initiative partners. The success of that strategy remains to be seen, and it will depend largely on regional geopolitical factors between the U.S. and China.
It is also worth noting that China has decided to put the underseas cable hub inside the mainland, at Nansha, and bypass Hong Kong, which has been a major international data center and underseas cable hub in Asia, up until the recent U.S. sanction, and which is only a short distance of 80 kilometers away.
As part of the document concerning cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, the construction of a trusted blockchain-based service network was mentioned. Indeed, China’s Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) has been touted as the state-sponsored private-public partnership to create a “common infrastructure for the deployment and operation of blockchain applications globally,” by setting up a “global infrastructure” but operating in such a manner that the operator of the BSN will be able to censor or entirely delete blockchains that violate Chinese regulations, making it yet another example of extending China’s influence and its governance regime to outside its border.
Official Plans - What is Left out is Just as Important as What is Written
While China’s state planning documents often seem bureaucratic, mundane and repetitive in their tone and prose, they do work as a defined set of targets that officials in China are measured by and hence generally follow. They are thus offering a reasonably good indicator as to where policies, efforts and investments would be heading. However, while observers may sometimes be tempted to believe that such central planning seems carefully considered, and as a matter of fact it often is, it is still important to take into account the hidden purpose behind, and any unintended, or intended but unspoken, consequences that may result. What is not said may often be as important, if not more important, than what is being said.
Although China’s state planners adamantly advocate innovation and talent development, they hardly offer any justification as to why a centrally planned and controlled directive can help them reach that goal. China’s policymakers are usually quite confident, based on the success of the China Internet sector in the past couple of decades. It seems a little ironic then, that it is exactly these sectors that are being targeted by numerous clampdowns at present by the state to rein in the power of their “big tech,” making future success under an even more tightly controlled environment to be hardly of any certainty.
While talents and capital must also form critical parts of the innovation and technology development ecosystem, China’s “internal cycle” and growing isolation may indicate that they find it more and more difficult to draw on critical resources from outside China, especially those from the developed, free and democratic world. The jury is still out on this race between two vastly differing views to what it takes to reach success in innovation and technology development.
The ultimate purpose and agenda of practically any policy or strategy in China must be first and foremost in service of the ruling authority and the Party, and this includes the technological, economic and social goals of any state planning. While higher bandwidth and better network infrastructure should be beneficial to metropolitan as well as rural citizens, such implementations are also the backbone tools for an unrestrained state authority to further enhance the surveillance on its people and control their lives in potentially every aspect, without the safeguards of genuine rule of law, democratic institutions, and respect for human rights. And these are exactly the important rights of the people that were of course absent from China’s plan. Yet, what is missing from China’s plan may just be the differentiating strengths of the free world.
As the U.S. and other governments of the free world, as well as the industry and civil societies are contemplating how the future Internet should be developed and regulated, it is important for all the stakeholders to act with vision and to look beyond our current set of problems with the Internet or even the issues with the big tech giants. Policymakers and indeed all stakeholders must focus on the global big picture, taking into consideration China’s stated plans and strategies, as an important competitive reference, in order to develop the framework and action plan for a truly democratic, free, open and sustainable future Internet.
Charles Mok is a visiting scholar with the Global Digital Policy Incubator of the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford University. He represented Information Technology in Hong Kong's Legislative Council as a Member of Parliament from 2012 to 2020.
Published: Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Dec 17 2021
https://www.freiheit.org/taiwan/making-chinas-future-internet
