By Franz-Stefan Gady
Probably not, as one expert recently told The Diplomat.
This month, China and Russia signed a memorandum stipulating that the two countries would not conduct cyberattacks against each other and that they also would jointly thwart technology that could potentially ”destabilize the internal political and socio-economic atmosphere,” “disturb public order” or “interfere with the internal affairs of the state,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Additionally, Beijing and Moscow agreed on closer cooperation in combating cybercrime, and joint efforts to improve critical information infrastructure protection in both countries. According to one expert “perhaps 70 percent” of the language in the document has been directly taken from a previous agreement worked out under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
For China, this is yet another step to promote its concept of Internet Sovereignty – a concept in direct opposition to the West’s idea of Internet freedom. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party leadership sees the Western idea of Internet freedom as tantamount to Western “cyber-hegemony.”
As I have written here, Western cyber-hegemony is perceived to constitute a real danger to the stability of Chinese society and more importantly a threat to one-party rule in the People’s Republic. For China — despite high profile and much publicized international cyber-espionage cases — domestic considerations in cyberspace are paramount.
Read the full story at The Diplomat