China has revved up its diplomatic campaign at the United Nations to promote greater state control over the internet, advocating the need to prioritize national sovereignty and security in a freewheeling digital world, while straining to secure access to advanced Western technology and chip away at human rights protections for civil society, according to internal U.N. diplomatic negotiating documents reviewed by Devex.
The Chinese effort is unfolding in closed-door negotiations over a U.N. declaration on a Global Digital Compact, a U.N. initiative aimed at harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to eliminate poverty, inequality, and other global ills, and setting the rules of the road for the future of digital communications. The final declaration is supposed to be approved by government leaders at the U.N. Summit of the Future in New York in September, on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly debate.
The deliberations at U.N. headquarters have exposed the deepening geopolitical rift between an informal Chinese-led bloc of authoritarian countries seeking international cover for reining in powerful social media companies and ratcheting up state control over social media, and the United States and its Western partners seeking to protect the intellectual property rights of major tech companies, while championing a more open digital ecosystem, where governments, the private sector, academics, and civil society have a say.
About the author
Colum Lynch
Colum Lynch is an award-winning reporter and Senior Global Reporter for Devex. He covers the intersection of development, diplomacy, and humanitarian relief at the United Nations and beyond. Prior to Devex, Colum reported on foreign policy and national security for Foreign Policy Magazine and the Washington Post. Colum was awarded the 2011 National Magazine Award for digital reporting for his blog Turtle Bay. He has also won an award for groundbreaking reporting on the U.N.’s failure to protect civilians in Darfur.
