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Few doubt that China wants to be a major economic and military power on the world stage. To achieve this ambitious goal, however, the PRC leadership knows that China must first become an advanced information-based society. But does China have what it takes to get there? Are its leaders prepared to make the tough choices required to secure China's cyber future? Or is there a fundamental mismatch between China's cyber ambitions and the policies pursued by the CCP until now?
This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of China's information society. It explores the key practical challenges facing Chinese politicians as they try to marry the development of modern information and communications technology with old ways of governing their people and conducting international relations. Fundamental realities of the information age, not least its globalizing character, are forcing the pace of technological change in China and are not fully compatible with the old PRC ethics of stability, national industrial strength and sovereignty. What happens to China in future decades will depend on the ethical choices its leaders are willing to make today. The stakes are high. But if China's ruling party does not adapt more aggressively to the defining realities of power and social organization in the information age, the 'China dream' looks unlikely to become a reality.
List of contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Chinäs Cyber Ambition
- 2. Legacy Values
- 3. eDemocracy, iDictatorship
- 4. Innovative Information Society
- 5. Security in the Global Infosphere
- 6. The Road Ahead
About the author
Greg Austin is leader of the Policy Innovation Unit at the East-West Institute and the author of several highly regarded books on international security.
Summary
Few doubt that China wants to be a major economic and military power on the world stage. To achieve this ambitious goal, however, the PRC leadership knows that China must first become an advanced information-based society.
Report
Greg Austin has produced a much needed, comprehensive examination of China's evolving approach to the increasingly important cyber world. Austin focuses on Chinese cyber policies and views in three critical areas: domestic politics, economics, and national security. He concludes that while China is well positioned to become a major advanced information society, it will fail to reap the benefits of such a development if it remains locked in its current "ethical dead end". This is an essential read for anyone interested in the impact of China's rise on a key global issue.
Michael D. Swaine, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC
In this book, Greg Austin offers a convincing analysis of the dilemma China is facing: this country has ambitions to become an advanced information society, but while developing its own version of e-government, the Communist Party remains keen to monitor and control the internet tightly. In the Chinese cyberspace, security overrides information. Under such conditions can China continue to rise? Cyber Policy in China will convince you that the country may not unless it introduces dramatic political changes.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Hong Kong Baptist University
