The US-China Cold War in Cyberspace

Posted April 23, 2020

External Article: CircleID

Milton Mueller, professor in the School of Public Policy, contributed the article "The US-China War in Cyberspace" to CircleID on April 22, 2020.

Mueller, a renowned cybersecurity expert, analyzes the United State's recent antagonistic stance toward China and that translates to cyberspace. 

Excerpt: 

The US is not thinking clearly about what this means and how to react to it. It does not seem to have the wisdom to plan for long-term co-existence and complementarity with another economic giant. Instead, it interprets all indications of China's rise as a threat and indulges in the fantasy that blockades and negativity will somehow turn back the clock to 1998 when China's economy was a fraction of its current size, and the US held uncontested dominance in the ICT sector.

Internet governance is at the center of this conflict. The Internet provides the common meeting point for ICT goods and services. It is the nexus of common technical standards and some of the shared governance institutions through which China and the West interact. Telecommunication equipment, telecommunication services, and information services are the main battleground upon which the conflict is being fought. The US and China are unable to reach agreement about how their digital economies will become integrated with each other. Both sides do not trust each other's private ICT companies to participate in their markets. In the US-China conflict, the entire digital economy is being used as a hostage.

Read the full article here.

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Milton Mueller