Opinion     

China's cyber security needs internationalism

China.org.cn, February 8, 2014

• Such a Warring States Period once occurred in the early stages of Internet development during the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, America, Europe and several multinational Internet companies such as IBM and DEC fought fiercely to promote their own Internet architectures and standards. In the end, America's TCP/IP stood out because of its free and open sources and international community of scientists.

  China is undoubtedly a beneficiary of Internet internationalism. In 1987, China sent out its very first email entitled "Across the Great Wall we can reach every corner in the world," which was considered the prelude for the country to access the global Computer Science Network (CSNET). However, in reality, the White House then rejected to open up an email connection for China.

  At this critical moment, Steven Wolff, who was responsible for the authorization, played a decisive part. He and his colleague insisted that academics should be separated from politics. Without the efforts of Wolff and his team, China would probably have had to delay its first steps into cyberspace.

  The ".CN" domain name server also relies on the internationalism of foreign network scientists. In 1990, with the support of Professor Werner Zorn, China established its ".CN" domain name server in Karlsruhe University in Germany. Four years later, scientists of the university returned the server to China and helped the country get global online access. Consequently, internationalism should become the ethic resource and fundamental principle for Chinese cyber security.

  Unfortunately, history has shown us network-related procedures often evolved into supposed hacker battles among different countries, as do all those bilateral and multilateral political disputes. This series of events makes "hackers" synonymous with "destroyers" in the digital world. Still, the hackers' original doctrine was based on independence, openness, cooperation and sharing; they formed a group of "constructors" rather than crackers, who actively focused on creating a fair order inside the virtual world. Thanks to their original internationalist spirit, different countries now share large numbers of free open sources, bringing the whole world closer together.

  As far as global Internet history and China's national conditions go, the fundamental principle for China's cyber security policy should be based on internationalism in accordance with China's independent foreign policy. China's cyber strategy should surpass counter-logic and hegemonic thinking, as well as create new management principles and policies.

  The author is a Ph.D. student at the School of Public Policy and Management (SPPM) at Tsinghua University.

  The article was translated by Lin Liyao. Its original unabridged version was published in Chinese.

  Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

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