Cyber Sovereignty: A New Vision in China

Abstract

Research on China’s strategy of cyber sovereignty to date has been inadequate, conceiving of the blueprint as a domestic Party censorship and surveillance mechanism, effectively minimising its foreign policy significance. Additionally, existing understandings have privileged the Western sovereignty paradigm, whose tenets have not been updated to reflect the impact of media and communication on today’s cross-bordered world. This interdisciplinary thesis challenges the prevailing narratives. It probes China’s power strategy of cyber sovereignty, arguing that it is not only a state-of-the-art experiment in regulating digital flows of information within China, but also a significant Party power strategy in facilitating their bold ambition to become a leader in global cyberspace. It makes the case that cyber sovereignty is an entirely new form of sovereign power, one that has harnessed the tools of the digital revolution in cutting-edge ways, forcing a rethinking of the classical mould of sovereignty. It offers an analytical redescription of this prototype of sovereignty, and the thesis contributes to the literature by offering an original interpretation of this form of power by illustrating its complex dynamics and paradoxical features. The thesis summarises the emergence of the concept of cyber sovereignty, identifying the theoretical and analytical cleavages in the literature. It also introduces the features of this new model of power, and establishes Hong Kong’s significance as a laboratory for cyber sovereignty. The thesis then conducts a pointed vivisection of the historical and contemporary literature on sovereignty, before delineating the re-envisioned model of cyber sovereignty. And lastly, the thesis positions Hong Kong as simultaneously the greatest expression of, yet challenge to China’s strategy of cyber sovereignty. Drawing from field research interviews, this interpretivist thesis peels back the blanketed layers, sedimented histories, and theoretical ideologies that intersect, diverge, and shroud understanding of this new modality of power. The thesis offers a prism through which to observe the political dynamics of the contemporary Chinese polity, now emerging as a global power, to more fully grasp the implications of cyber sovereignty in the international order.