Cybersecurity with Chinese Characteristics: Digital Governance in the Indo-Pacific and the Taiwanese Alternative reveals how China is expanding its digital authoritarian model of cybersecurity governance across the Indo-Pacific, posing a grave threat to people’s rights – regionally and globally.
Through its Digital Silk Road, China is not only developing digital infrastructure, but also aggressively promoting its own norms for governing these technologies. One area where this is most pronounced is in the promotion of cybersecurity norms. The success of China’s digital norms-setting in this critical realm of internet governance risks supercharging digital authoritarianism regionally – and normalising Beijing’s model internationally – at the expense of human rights, internet freedom, and democracy.
Cybersecurity with Chinese Characteristics establishes a baseline understanding of China’s repressive cybersecurity norms and reveals how it is smuggling them, via the Trojan Horse of digital development, into 3 Indo-Pacific countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam. Crucially, it presents a compelling alternative model of cybersecurity governance: Taiwan’s transparent, rights-based, multi-stakeholder approach.
Guest speakers:
Michael Caster is the Head of Global China Programme at ARTICLE 19, where he leads the organization concerning China and its international impact on freedom of expression and information, with a focus on the intersection of technology and human rights. Prior to joining ARTICLE 19, Michael worked extensively on human rights issues across Southeast Asia and China, including five years with the underground human rights movement in Beijing. He has written widely on the Chinese government’s assault on human rights, including as editor of The People’s Republic of the Disappeared: Stories from Inside China’s System for Enforced Disappearances.
Lulu Kang worked in digital rights for over eight years, playing a role as the coordinator between tech communities and civil society organizations and providing digital support to CSOs locally and internationally through cybersecurity training and open technology solutions. She is currently the board member of Open Culture Foundation and formerly worked as the Program Manager with Freedom House for the Indo-Pacific Center for Promoting Civil Society Resilience which focused on combating digital authoritarianism. Lulu was also involved in the open government process that developed Taiwan’s first Open Government National Action Plan.
Liu I-Chen is a Programme Officer at ARTICLE 19 with a background in policy and sociology. He focuses on the intersection of civil society, digital rights, and democratic resilience. His research and advocacy examine authoritarian influence in the digital landscape across the Indo-Pacific region, with particular emphasis on the PRC’s strategies for shaping digital governance and the information environment.
Resources:
To learn more about the topic prior to this discussion, we recommend the following resources:
- Report on Cybersecurity with Chinese Characteristics: Digital Governance in the Indo-Pacific and the Taiwanese Alternative
- Article on Report on Cybersecurity with Chinese Characteristics: Digital Governance in the Indo-Pacific and the Taiwanese Alternative
- The Digital Silk Road: China and the rise of digital repression in the Indo-Pacific
- Radio Interview on ABC Listen
- German Marshall Fund Podcast
Note: Registration is now required to join the conversation.
Room: Zoom (to be emailed to registrants prior to the event)