Cyber Sovereignty and the Governance of Global Cyberspace

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to review the competing guiding principle that govern the global cyberspace. This was achieved through the introduction and comparativeness of the different understanding between China and US of how to ensure the sovereignty in the global cyberspace. This paper also addresses China’s understanding of cyber sovereignty and its possible effect on the evolution of the governance of global cyberspace since 2013. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses historical and policy documents to compare and analyze the difference of sovereignty principle applied by US and China to govern the global cyberspace. Policy terms and their significance are addressed in a manner that will be comprehensible to a non-policy trained readership. Findings: The paper finds that though China and US may have different narrative of how to apply cyber sovereignty principle to guide the governance of global cyberspace, both two countries pay special attention on how to ensure the cyber sovereignty in different ways. US prefer to expand its cyber sovereignty, while China prefer to launch the cyber sovereignty defensively. Research limitations/implications: The paper got the conclusion based on a relative limited access to the latest policy files, especially those reflects the positon of Beijing. The vivid development of practice of the governance of global cyberspace also raise the requirement of refresh the research in further. Originality/value: The research of the paper is instructive. The research provides the valuable pointers for policy makers and researchers to understand China’s cyber sovereignty properly.