The pictured is a statue of Zheng He in front of the Zheng He Tomb in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.

 

At the sixth China Information Security Law Conference in Beijing on Dec. 9, scholars offered advice on a highly anticipated policy that will provide a legal framework for regulating the Internet.

As part of its “Internet Plus” strategy, China continues to build a legal system to ensure cybersecurity.
“Safety issues on the Internet brought by new technologies and businesses should be a big focus of future legislative efforts on cybersecurity,” said Li Haiying, director of the Center for Internet Law Studies at the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology.
 

With the implementation of Internet Plus, safety risks inherent to the Internet and security problems of various industries are becoming intertwined. “Legislation covering cybersecurity entails a broader vision and a wider range of attention amid challenges that new technologies pose,” Li said. 
 

A new outlook on Internet security is needed, said Li Jingjing, director of the Legal Affairs Department at the Cybersecurity Bureau under the Ministry of Public Security. Cybersecurity is not just about operational and information security. It is so integrated and strategic that the security of the whole country will be at risk if it is not handled properly, she added. 
 

Li Jingjing stressed the importance of  “cyberspace sovereignty.” At present, cyberspace sovereignty has been recognized in the international community. Many countries have agreed that information transmission has no boundaries, but the concept of sovereignty still exists in cyberspace.
 

The technical attributes of the Internet are important to consider when formulating laws for cybersecurity. Among others, the protection of data resource security is a common concern in academia.
Li Haiying noted that data resources are a major component of cyberspace sovereignty, adding that local storage, utilization, control and management of data resources are requirements of cyberspace sovereignty.
 

The Blue Book on China Cloud Computing Security Policies and Laws (2015) released by the China Cloud Computing Security Policies and Laws Group at the conference focuses on “the influence of policy legislation on data localization.”
 

Through investigations into  countries that have already enacted legislation on data localization such as France, Australia, Canada, India and Brazil, the Blue Book revealed that strengthening data security and privacy protection is the basic starting point in lawmaking for data localization and a universally acknowledged basis for the restriction of cross-border personal data flow. 

Legislating data localization also aims to reduce the threat of foreign interception, facilitate law enforcement and promote economic development. 

In addition to technical attributes, the social properties of the Internet are also considered when designing laws for cybersecurity.
 

The Internet is not merely a tool for communication nor is it simply an outlet for emerging media but has developed into a public platform for all of society, thus possessing evident social attributes. Online activities, boiled down to fundamentals, are human activities and a representation of interpersonal social relations, Li jingjing said.

Attending scholars said that because the Internet is a vehicle for the same social relations that exist in the real world, all regulations pertaining to real-life social management are applicable to the Internet. Social relations of different types call for adjustments in different legal departments, they said.
 

Zhou Hanhua, a research fellow from the Institute of Law at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that legal norms governing Internet society include not only laws that specifically regulate networks but also criminal, civil and administrative laws. “Such recognition can raise the whole society’s awareness of cybersecurity legislation and is favorable to future law enforcement on the Internet,” Zhou said.

 

 

 

Mao Li is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.