Usama Nizamani and Afeera Firdous

The term digital sovereignty, which interchangeably is also known as ‘internet sovereignty’ or ‘cyber sovereignty’, is starting to establish a strong foothold globally in the national politics, economics, and technological landscape.

Countries are beginning to exert influence over the internet as a sovereign issue, treating it similar to a territorial issue, with legislation, development of networks, localisation of data centres, decoupling of technology with other countries, regulation of content, and penalisation of cyber activities. The move to digital sovereignty, with almost disruptive pace, is displacing the previous cyber order. If unmitigated without inclusive, consensus-based norms and participatory development, a precarious and fragmented digital landscape awaits the world.

Early Preachers and Practitioners

The concept of digital sovereignty, Yuxi Wei, a scholar on cyber-security, notes, was first floated by China in a white paper titled The Internet in China in 2010. In 2011, it was once again mentioned, in the Code of Conduct submitted by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to the United Nations, and later in 2015. The Chinese President, Xi Jinping, in 2014 at the sixth summit of BRICS in Brazil, once again invoked the need for ‘cyber sovereignty’ as the internet posed a challenge to national sovereignty. China follows a two-tier outlook on internet-governance; one part of this governance relates to the regulation of the internet and network development in China, the second part relates to its global vision of the internet.

The governance of internet in China is carried out under overarching tenet of cyber-sovereignty, comprising seven integral principles: information sovereignty, key-information infrastructure protection, intercommunication between systems, independent choice of network development paths and network management model, independent internet public policies and legislation of information content management, non-interference in internal affairs through the internet, and discouraging use of cyber-attacks against other states.

At the global level, China aspires to become a ‘cyber power’ with a four-pronged strategy: denial of cyber hegemony to one country or a bloc; development of global network infrastructure across different regions to reduce the digital divide; promoting intercommunication between such network; and equal participation in the governance of international cyberspace.

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China has also in line with the principle on cyber sovereignty, denied space to US-based internet-tech companies such as Goog