Russia, China, and the Push for ‘Digital Sovereignty’ · Global Voices
Russian President <PERSON> and Chinese leader <PERSON>. Source: Kremlin.ru, CC 2.0
On the last weekend in October, officials and high-profile media figures from Russia and China met in Guangzhou for the first ever China-Russia Internet Media Forum. Speakers congratulated each other on improved cooperation over traditional and digital media, and their collective effort to combat attempts by “Western mainstream media” to control the informational space. <PERSON>, Russia’s deputy minister of telecommunications and mass communications, delivered a speech at the conference detailing the countries’ overlapping cybersecurity concerns. He focused on network security and the development of “invulnerable information-communications systems.” “It is necessary to ensure the stability and invulnerability of the national segment of the internet from external action,” he argued.
Since the founding of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2009, Russian and Chinese officials have frequently discussed joint cybersecurity initiatives. A relatively substantial degree of collaboration was formalized in the context of heightened Russo-Chinese cooperation in 2014 and 2015, with both countries signing an agreement that included cybersecurity cooperation provisions in May of last year. In the words of the agreement’s signatories, its purpose was to limit the use of informational technology designed “to interfere in the internal affairs of states; undermine sovereignty, political, economic and social stability; [and] disturb public order.”
Digital Sovereignty
This emphasis on digital sovereignty remains a central tenet of both countries’ cyber policies, even as cooperation on the issue has ebbed and flowed. The non-aggression elements of the 2015 agreement floundered in the implementation stage, in part due to ambiguous language, but largely as a result of continued Chinese cyber espionage. This activity rose to unprecedented levels in 2016, with Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs reporting 194 Chinese cyberattacks in the first 7 months of the year alone—compared to just 72 in 2015. These attacks targeted government agencies, the defense and aerospace industries, as well as nuclear technology companies. 704
And they’re probably underreported: a Kaspersky Labs spokesperson told Bloomberg that only around 10% of their corporate clients exchange data related to hacks with their security network.
Source: Flickr, Open Democracy
Despite the attacks, Russia and China have continued their cybersecurity cooperation, at least publicly. In April, the first Russian-Chinese Forum on Internet Security was held in Moscow, and Mr. <PERSON>’s China-Russia Internet Media Forum came a few months later. What's more, according to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs <PERSON>, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and intelligence services hold consultations with Chinese officials on cybersecurity issues twice a year. Still, these exchanges do not amount to substantive agreements.
Железняк: Необходимо обеспечить цифровой суверенитет России https://t.co/wrBmOciGvo
— Единая Россия (@er_novosti) May 11, 2016
<PERSON> [deputy secretary of the general council of <PERSON>’s United Russia party]: It's necessary to support Russia's the digital sovereignty.
Digital sovereignty resembles, in many ways, the Kremlin’s conception of “sovereign democracy,” a term used to justify Russia’s right to eschew certain democratic principles in the name of “stability” and sovereignty in their own affairs. Similarly, cyber-sovereignty challenges the dominant American, internationalist approach to norms of digital governance. The Russian and Chinese view of internet regulation places much more authority in the hands of states, and views cyber activity as occurring within the jurisdictions of these states, rather than within a stateless data environment.
Cyber Envy
Rather than an alliance, Russia and China have a marriage of convenience that reflects a shared priority: regime stability. On the Russian side, this amounts in part to envy of China’s near-comprehensive control of national cyberspace. This has been particularly clear in Russian interest in the monitoring of internet traffic. In an interview with Gazeta.ru, <PERSON>, director of the Coordination Center for Top-Level Domain RU, noted that efforts at monitoring, such as deep packet inspection (DPI), which are well established in Chinese internet infrastructure, have received a great deal of attention in Russia. 704