The phenomenal development of information technology revolution and digital economy is transforming the way of production and life of mankind, exerting far-reaching influence over social and economic development of States, global governance system and human civilization. In the meantime, the global digital governance deficit is becoming increasingly prominent, and such problems as unbalanced development, inadequate rules and inequitable order have become more evident in the digital field. Certain country has politicized science and technology as well as economic and trade issues, and used them as a weapon and tool to divide the global Internet, jeopardizing global digital development and cooperation.

In the face of both opportunities and challenges brought by digitalization, all parties should uphold multilateralism, stick to fairness and justice, take a balanced approach to development and security, step up dialogue and cooperation, and work together to improve the global digital governance system and build a community with a shared future in cyberspace. China supports the leading role of the United Nations in global digital governance and rules-making, and stands ready to join all parties in exploring solutions to the prominent issues in digital development and digital governance and building international consensus in this regard. To this end, China would like to put forward the following basic principles and proposals. 

Basic Principles

Uphold unity and cooperation. As the UN Secretary-General has warned us in a similar way, two markets, two sets of standards and two supply chains are also emerging in the cyber and digital domain. Drawing ideological lines or instigating group politics and bloc confrontation will only set obstacles in the way of global development and human progress. States should adhere to unity rather than division, cooperation rather than confrontation, inclusiveness rather than exclusion, and formulate globally interoperable common rules and standards on the basis of mutual respect and broad consensus, and prevent the division and fragmentation of digital governance rules.

Focus on development. Economic digitalization has offered significant opportunities to all States, in particular the developing ones. States should expand digital cooperation, promote digital trade, bridge the digital divide, and build a global digital economic paradigm featuring benefits for all, balance, coordination, inclusiveness, win-win cooperation and common prosperity. States should respect others’ cyber sovereignty as well as the right to independently choose their own paths of digital development in light of their own national conditions. States should put an equal emphasis on development and security, forge an open, inclusive, fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for digital development, and refrain from overstretching and abusing the issue of security to contain and suppress the legitimate economic and technological development of other States.

Promote fairness and justice. Access to and development of digital technologies, products and services is the inalienable legitimate right of all States and especially developing ones, and is crucial to bridge the digital divide and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). States should promote international cooperation and assistance, stand against technological monopoly and unilateral coercive measures, maintain an open, secure and stable supply chain of global digital products and services, and make global digital development more equitable and effective and beneficial to all. States should make efforts to address the challenges posed by digital economy to vulnerable groups, ensuring that people from all walks of life can share the benefits and dividends of digital development on an equal footing.

Facilitate effective governance. In the face of such issues of mutual concern as cybersecurity, data security, critical information infrastructure security, platform regulation, personal privacy and hate speech, States should formulate international rules through wide participation and extensive consultation among all Member States under the auspices of the UN, work together to build an international Internet governance system featuring multilateralism, democracy and transparency, and ensure equitable distribution and joint management of basic Internet resources. International organizations, ICT companies, technology communities, civil organizations and other stakeholders can play their part commensurate with their roles and responsibilities.

Specific Proposals

1.Connect all people to the Internet

States should further promote fair, reasonable and universal access to the Internet, facilitate the popularization of Internet technology and linguistic diversity on the Internet, and enhance digital connectivity, ensuring that the benefits of the Internet and digital technology developments are shared by all. States have the right to participate in the management and distribution of basic international Internet resources on equal footings, and should refrain from taking advantage of Internet resources and technologies to undermine the legitimate rights of other States to access the Internet, thus endangering the security, stability and connectivity of the global Internet.

States should strengthen digital capacity building, ensure developing countries’ rights of peaceful use of Internet resources and technologies, and support providing developing countries with capacity building assistance including finance, technology transfer, critical information infrastructure development and personnel training, enabling those countries to have affordable access to the Internet. It is encouraged that governments, businesses and civil organizations should assist the elderly, women, minors, people with disabilities and the poor in their access to and usage of the Internet through investment, education, training, innovation and application of technologies to increase digital inclusiveness. Exchanges on knowledge and development policies should be enhanced, and people-to-people exchanges, including those among youth and women should be encouraged, in order to forge synergy for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

2. Avoid Internet fragmentation

States should foster a cyberspace featuring peace, security, openness, cooperation and order, and stand against division and fragmentation of the Internet. States should formulate globally interoperable common rules and standards in cyberspace through broad participation of Member States under the auspices of the UN, and stay committed to building an international Internet governance system featuring multilateralism, democracy and transparency.

States should put an equal emphasis on development and security, promote information infrastructure connectivity, and ensure peaceful use, cooperation and shared benefits of the Internet technologies. States should not overstretch the concept of national security nor abuse control tools to arbitrarily block the supply chain of global ICT products, in particular those based on long-term commercial relationship, and support enterprises in making their own independent choices based on business consideration to use ICT technologies and products. States should uphold the principles of cooperation and shared benefits, take into full consideration the unique opportunities and challenges faced by developing countries in relation to digital trade, and facilitate formulation of high-level digital trade rules in an open and inclusive manner. States shall enhance policy coordination, promote fair and free trade and investment globally, and oppose trade barriers and trade protectionism to create a global digital market.

3. Protect data

States should handle data security in a comprehensive, objective and evidence-based manner, and ensure free flow of data in an orderly manner and in accordance with the law. States should stand against ICT activities that impair or steal important data of other States’ critical infrastructure, or use the data to conduct activities that undermine other States’ national security and public interests.

States should respect the sovereignty, jurisdiction and governance of data of other States, and shall not obtain data located in other States through companies or individuals without other States’ permission. Should States need to obtain overseas data out of law enforcement requirement such as combating crimes, they should do it through judicial assistance or other relevant multilateral and bilateral agreements. Any bilateral data access agreement between two States should not infringe upon the judicial sovereignty and data security of a third State.

ICT products and services providers should not install backdoors in their products and services to illegally obtain users’ data, control or manipulate users’ systems and devices. Products providers should make a commitment to notifying their cooperation partners and users of serious vulnerabilities in their products in a timely fashion and offering remedies.

4. Apply human rights online

Right to development is the primary and basic human right. States should facilitate digital innovation and development, bridge digital divide, and enable more people around the world to share the benefits of digital development in a more equitable way. States should oppose the abuse of unilateral coercive measures that undermine other States’ capabilities to develop digital economy and improve people’s livelihood, or pose consistent and systemic violation of human rights. States should refrain from politicizing human rights issues, or interfering in others’ domestic affairs and challenging others’ judicial sovereignty under the excuse of protecting online human rights. 

States should dedicate themselves to providing consistent, stable and open digital products and services that deliver benefits to all their citizens, in particular the vulnerable, and narrow down the digital capacity gap among different groups and regions. Training on digital skills should be further extended to the elderly, women, minors, people with disabilities and the poor, so that digital capacity and skills of all people could be enhanced. In particular, more smart products and services that are suited to the needs and characteristics of the elderly should be provided for them to enjoy better service experience. By taking aforementioned actions, the right to development of specific groups will be better protected and promoted. 

States should respect the rights and fundamental freedoms of their citizens in cyberspace. In the meantime, States are entitled to protect, manage and regulate the transmission of Internet information, in order to prevent and stop any rights violation of their citizens, as well as any illicit acts that jeopardize the public order, incite violence, discrimination, exclusion and intolerance, or undermine national security. States should take actions to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the elderly, women, minors, people with disabilities and the poor. 

States should be committed to taking actions to prevent and stop acts that jeopardize personal information and privacy through the use of ICTs, and oppose mass surveillance against other States and unauthorized collection of personal information of other States with ICTs as a tool. States should make joint efforts to combat illicit stealing, exposure and trade of personal information and commercial data. States should help businesses  improve their awareness of data protection, increase self-discipline, and take concrete actions to protect personal information and privacy in cyberspace.

5. Introduce accountability criteria for discrimination and misleading content

States should take appropriate measures, including formulating and improving the framework of laws and regulations, encouraging ICT organizations to conduct self-discipline and introduce code of conduct, and increasing regulation and supervision of ICT companies, to prevent individuals and organizations from using the Internet to engage in illicit acts. Such acts include but are not limited to publishing information that endangers national security, incites subversion and secession, and jeopardizes state unity, spreading rhetoric of terrorism, extremism, racial hatred and discrimination, fabricating and intentionally transmitting rumors that disturb the economic and social order, transmitting violent and pornographic content, and insulting and slandering others and violating others’ reputation, privacy, intellectual property rights and other legitimate rights and interests. States should encourage ICT companies to establish or improve systems of handling public complaints and reports and protecting customers’ rights. Relevant companies should take an initiative to receive public supervision, handle public complaints and reports in a timely manner, and offer compensation to their users for any violation of their rights and interests in accordance with law. 

6.Promote regulation of artificial intelligence (AI)

States, on the basis of broad participation, should promote the formation of a framework and a set of standards for international AI governance with broad consensus through dialogue and cooperation, and ensure that AI is safe, reliable and controllable and better empowers global sustainable development. States should stick to a people-centered approach and the principle of AI for good, oppose moves that undermine the sovereignty and territorial security of other countries by using AI technology, refrain from drawing ideological lines or setting up exclusive groups to maliciously obstruct other countries’ technological development, and ensure all countries’ rights of development and peaceful use of technologies in order to share the benefits  of AI technologies.

States should give priority to ethics, establish and improve rules, norms and accountability mechanisms for AI ethics, clarify responsibilities and power boundaries of AI-related entities, fully respect and protect the legitimate rights and interests of all groups. States should, in light of their own stage of AI development as well as social and cultural characteristics, gradually establish review and regulation mechanisms for ethics in science and technology suited to their national conditions, strengthen evaluation and management capacity for AI security, establish an effective early warning mechanism, apply agile governance and tiered and categorized management, and continuously improve risk management, control and settlement capacity.

States should require R&D entities to strengthen self-discipline, avoid premature use of technologies that may cause serious consequences, and ensure that AI is always under the control of humans. States should require R&D entities to strive for algorithm security and controllability throughout the AI R&D process, improve transparency, explainability and reliability and gradually make AI verifiable, regulatable, traceable, predictable and trustworthy and strive for better data quality during AI R&D, and improve the completeness, timeliness, consistency, normalization and accuracy of data. States should require R&D entities to fully consider diversified demands, avoid potential data and algorithms bias, and strive to achieve the universality, fairness and non-discrimination of AI systems.

States should prohibit using AI technologies and relevant applications which run counter to laws, regulations, ethics and standards, strengthen quality monitoring and evaluations on the use of AI products and services, and formulate emergency mechanisms and compensation measures. States should strengthen pre-use study and evaluations of AI products and services, promote institutionalized training on AI ethics, and ensure that relevant personnel acquire necessary professional expertise and skills. States should safeguard individual privacy and data security of Al products and services, strictly follow international or regional norms for handling of personal information, and oppose illegal collection and utilization of personal information.

7.Digital public goods

The principle of national sovereignty should be applied in cyber and digital domain. States have jurisdiction over ICT infrastructures, resources and data as well as ICT activities within their borders, and have the right to formulate their own public policies and laws and regulations regarding the Internet, safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of their citizens, enterprises and social organizations and other subjects in cyberspace. 

Meanwhile, increasing the openness of digital products has positive implications for unlocking the potential of digital technologies and advancing the achievement of the SDGs, especially for low and middle income countries. On the basis of respecting the sovereignty, data security, legitimate rights and interests of citizens of other States and following the principle of voluntarism, States can discuss and gradually build consensus on the standards, scope, way of management and guidelines for the use of digital public goods. States should enhance the digitalization of public services, strengthen international cooperation in areas such as online education, and strengthen cooperation and sharing of data for monitoring and evaluation of the SDGs in order to promote their implementation more effectively.