"Beijing's
vision of the Internet is ascendant," writes the Council on Foreign
Relations' Adam Segal in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs. This
is not a good thing.
While the United States is drowning in the reckless self-absorption of red-blue tribalism and moronic rhetoric about reviving a near-death coal industry, Chinese President Xi is pursuing lofty goals that are changing the face of global technology.
While the United States is drowning in the reckless self-absorption of red-blue tribalism and moronic rhetoric about reviving a near-death coal industry, Chinese President Xi is pursuing lofty goals that are changing the face of global technology.
Xi intends to nullify
U.S. leadership in cyberspace, especially now as we drift through our current
period of somnambulism. China is investing heavily in graduate education and
massive R&D efforts to innovate in cyber-defense, semi-conductors,
artificial intelligence, quantum computing and robotics. Beijing has been
consistently growing its once-anemic R&D spending to a point where it now comprises 20 percent of
the world's total - and climbing. Xi has also been flexing his muscles in
shaping standards for the next generation of 5G mobile network technology.
Segal reminds us that
Xi's vision here is not benign. It starts with cyber-defense, of course, but in
his terms that means controlling, limiting and even closing the Internet
because, well, that's what dictators do. They fear facts, truth, openness, resistance and any technologies that undermine their ability to
shape reality in their own image.
He writes that, "China
envisions a world of national Internets, with government control justified by
sovereign rights of the states." In normal times that statement should
shock our national leaders, a calcified, mid-20th Century crowd who wouldn't know a
semiconductor from a semicolon. Sadly, however, these are not normal times for
the United States, and China knows it. Beijing's massive
cyber-push must also disillusion those who once hoped the Internet would reduce barriers and open
borders, a blind faith Segal now brands as "the West's naive optimism
about the liberalizing potential of the Internet."
Would any reasonable
American analyst or observer want to change places with China in the cyber arena? No, at
least not yet. Beijing's clumsy, top-down efforts should pale in comparison to what
will continue to flow from the U.S. private sector, even without much enlightened government support. That said, we are ceding
important strategic ground to Beijing and losing momentum. Isn't it about time to wake up?
Image courtesy of Satmarin.