Chinese internet policy has consumed mainstream headlines over the last few weeks, and not just because of the United States’ campaign to convince other countries to ban Huawei from 5G networks. Apple removed an app from its App Store used by Hong Kong protesters to track police, raising questions about Beijing’s influence on U.S. companies. Meanwhile, Chinese internet giant Tencent has suspended its streaming of National Basketball Association games in China after the Houston Rockets’ general manager tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protesters.
During its annual state-run World Internet Conference in October, the Chinese government continued to push its narrative that countries need to exert sovereignty over the internet within their borders. In a letter to the conference, President Xi Jinping wrote of the responsibility of all nations to “develop, use and govern” the internet responsibly.
These recent events underscore a debate that has been ongoing for years: just how much ‘cyber sovereignty’ is too much cyber sovereignty? While many countries have long resisted the notion of cyber sovereignty, Beijing and other actors could be influencing the discussion.
Authoritarian countries like China and Russia have long used phrases like ‘cyber sovereignty’ as a way to justify practices deemed unacceptable in many democracies, such as tight control of internet gateways or the censorship of political content online. Specifically, in China, ‘cyber sovereignty’ manifests in the Great Firewall and data localization policies. In Russia, it has encompassed everything from the country’s pus ..
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