On the evening of November 20th, 2020, the Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS), Peking University (PKU) held the 44th seminar of "North Pavilion Dialogue" series lectures. Xu Peixi, professor of Communication University of China (CUC) and member of Expert Advisory Committee on Cyber Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, gave a lecture entitled “Is the Internet Moving Towards Division or Community? – the Origin, Divergence, and Trend of International Rules in Cyberspace.” The lecture was hosted by Gui Yongtao, Vice President of IISS, PKU and the School of International Studies, PKU.

Prof. Xu pointed out that international governance in cyberspace is highly complex, extensive and intersecting, and it is gradually becoming the core of the superpower game, which is mainly reflected in five aspects: cyber arms control, cybercrime, digital economy and trade, technical code and network information content. Under the title of “Overcoming the Sino-US. Digital Cold War”, the No. 81 sub-forum of the 15th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) discussed the game between the U.S. “clean network” program and “Global Initiative on Data Security” of China. Based on this, Prof. Xu summarized three characteristics of the United States’ use of national cyber sovereignty to attack specific countries: exclusion of dissidents, vertical cooperation and horizontal connection, and framing.

Prof. Xu then introduced his research on international rules in cyberspace, including: Sino-U.S. consensus on cyberespionage, non-interference in the common core of the Internet, information intervention of national policies, resorting to Internet or forces, maintenance of global financial stability, cyber security loopholes, traceability mechanism and principle of network attack, artificial intelligence and automatic lethal weapons, and opposition to racial discrimination, ethnic hatred, and religious hatred, he summarized the initial formation process and main content of the abovementioned rules and analyzed them. According to him, the debate around these rules reflects the long-standing differences and games among the United States, which ideologizes technical issues, Europe, which tries to take a third way, and China, which defends its own digital economy interests.

Prof. Xu further explained that there are currently two controversial models of international governance of cyberspace in the United States: (1) the multi-party model supported by the information industry and many enlightened members of the Democratic Party, which emphasizes the participation of subjects such as government, enterprises, technical community, and academic community; and (2) the offensive cyber sovereignty model supported by the war industry, intelligence and security sectors. The outcome of the game between the two sides will determine whether the Internet will be divided. If the cyber sovereignty theorists are allowed to win and the newly elected President Biden does not correct the deviation in time, then the fate of the Internet will be full of uncertainty.

During the Q&A session, Prof. Xu exchanged ideas and discussed with the students and faculty members issues such as submarine optical cable, cyber anonymity, and Sino-U.S. relations under the development of 5G information industry. (Contributor: Zhang Xu)

Editor: Li Fangqi, Zeng Chuyuan    Photographer: Zheng Peijie