This comprehensive overview of Chinese cyber strategy places the country’s cyber-relevant developments in the context of governance. China continues the line of driving the society towards ‘informatisation’ while maintaining firm political control over internet use.
In the digital sphere, China stands out in its approach to internet governance, extensive industrial espionage, and increasing military focus on cyberspace operations. In particular, China’s perception of disproportionate Western dominance in shaping the future of the global internet leads the nation to promote sovereignty-based internet governance that allows states to regulate cyberspace as they wish. Seeing information as a strategic weapon to achieve an asymmetric advantage, China’s regime is likewise highly aware of the potential threat information constitutes when left uncontrolled.
Authored by Mikk Raud, this analysis is part of the NATO CCD COE series on national organisational models for ensuring cyber security, which summarise national cyber security strategy objectives and outline the division of cyber security tasks and responsibilities between agencies. The reports, edited by Kadri Kaska, give an overview of the mandate, tasks and competences of the relevant organisations and of coordination between them. The scope of the reports encompasses the mandates of political and strategic cyber security governance; national cyber incident management coordination; military cyber defence; and cyber aspects of crisis prevention and crisis management.