A History of Chinese Participation in Global Internet Governance

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Chinese Journal of Communication
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A history of Chinese global Internet governance
and its relations with ITU and ICANN
Gianluigi Negro
To cite this article: Gianluigi Negro (2019): A history of Chinese global Internet
governance and its relations with ITU and ICANN, Chinese Journal of Communication, DOI:
10.1080/17544750.2019.1650789
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2019.1650789
Published online: 12 Aug 2019.
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A history of Chinese global Internet governance and its relations with
ITU and ICANN
Gianluigi Negro
China Media Observatory, Universit
a Della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland
The Chinese contribution to global Internet governance debate has been
studied mainly by focusing on the governmental perspective. This study was
aimed to provide a broader view by analyzing the participation of Chinese
academics and civil society in two of the most important Internet governance
international organizations: the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Based on historical material and in-depth interviews conducted in Geneva and
Beijing, the findings show the evolution of Chinese Internet governance at the
global level and suggest the following: first, the Chinese agents in the global
debate on Internet governance support a multi-stakeholder perspective; second,
although seldom engaged in the decision-making process, the Chinese agents
involved in the global governance identify ITU as the more credible
international organization in coordinating global governance; third, the
Chinese agents have an ambivalent approach to Chinese participation both in
ITU and ICANN. Finally, the findings of the study reported in this article
contest the understanding that Chinese Internet governance is isolationist
in nature.
Keywords: Internet governance; multi-stakeholder; ITU; ICANN; IGF
The Chinese internet at the transnational level: why it is important
When this study was conducted, China had the greatest population of Internet
users in the world (CNNIC, 2018).1
The unique historical growth in infrastruc-
tures, as well as the creation of a national domestic Internet industry, led to the
creation of a new field of research: Chinese Internet studies. A meta review carried
out by Herold and De Seta (2015) between 1993 and 2013 revealed that this field
of research had remained descriptive and exploratory, and few attempts had been
made to integrate studies into the wider context of global Internet studies. Indeed,
especially since the end of the 1900s through the first decade of the 2000s, the
majority of the literature was focused on Chinese domestic control (Abbott, 2001;
MacKinnon, 2012; Morozov, 2012), and it emphasized the effectiveness of the
Golden Shield Project (Jindun Gongcheng), also known as the Great Firewall of
China (Fanghuo Changcheng) (Lee Liu, 2012; Reed, 2000; Stevenson, 2007;
Winter Lindskog, 2012). The existing general narrative conveys the idea that
China is an isolated country. One of the most evident representations of this idea
was the cover page of The Economist in April 2013, entitled “A giant cage”
(Epstein, 2013). The editorial stated, “the Internet was expected to help democra-
tize China. Instead, it has enabled the authoritarian state to get a firmer grip”
Corresponding author. Email: gianluigi.negro@usi.ch
ß 2019 The Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Chinese Journal of Communication, 2019
https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2019.1650789

(Epstein, 2013). However, some scholars have proposed a different perspective
that highlights the growing relevance of the Chinese government in Internet gov-
ernance at the global level (Ars
ene, 2012; Jiang, 2012).
This study demonstrates that China continues to challenge the status quo of
Internet governance. The following three key points are highlighted. First, China’s
contribution to global Internet governance involves a variety of stakeholders. Its
presence is not limited to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)2
circles, which promote a stronger role of governments in the decision-making pro-
cess. In fact, Chinese delegations are becoming increasingly engaged in the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)3
events. In gen-
eral, as declared through both ITU and ICANN, the Chinese vision appears be in
line with an original multi-stakeholder model in which, as argued by Hill (2014a),
governments are the only players who can agree voluntarily to forego exercising
some of their sovereign rights to cede more power to non-state actors.
Second, over the years, China has enlarged its role in both the ITU and
ICANN. Its engagement in the two organizations calls into question the categor-
ization of China as one of the main players in the Internet Yalta (Klimburg, 2013)
and the Digital Cold War (O’Connor, 2014) or as contributor to Internet fragmen-
tation (Guan, 2019; Lindsay, Cheung, Reveron, 2015). Instead, China provides
an alternative vision of multi-stakeholder governance, which indicates a more
complex vision of Chinese Internet governance than previously assumed.
Third, the analysis of the data collected in the 20 interviews conducted in this
research indicates that the views of policymakers, scholars, and businesspersons
are not convergent and that the Chinese activities in the field of global Internet
governance are more disjointed and inconsistent than those in the US, which
appear to be coherent. These findings are in line with Zeng, Stevens, and Chen
(2017), who found contradictory Chinese discourse (Beeson Zeng, 2018) in the
field of Internet global governance. Contradiction and the lack of convergence in
the Chinese narrative should not be considered new, which is evidenced by the
One Belt and One Road Initiative (Danner, 2018; Zeng, 2019).
Methodology and sources
The methodology applied in this research was inspired by Hong Shen’s theoretical
framework, according to which “China’s policy formation toward global Internet
governance is best understood as the product of multifaceted interactions among a
group of power-holders, including different state agencies and business units in
both domestic and transnational contexts” (Shen, 2016, p. 17). Following Shen’s
suggestion, this study includes elite academic perspectives and those of other speci-
alized groups in order to explore the complexity of and the contradictions in
Chinese Internet governance while taking into account the multilayered and multi-
faceted Chinese system, which is based on “cyber capitalism with Chinese charac-
teristics”4
(Thussu, 2018, p. 17).
The secondary sources examined in this study include official Chinese state-
ments and transcripts of ICANN meetings, the two ITU-supported World
Summits of Information Society (WSIS), including preparatory meetings, and
Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meetings. Regarding the data collected from
ICANN, I analyzed all the available annual reports from 2004 to 2014. I also
2 Gianluigi Negro

conducted a less systematic search using the ICANN internal search engine, manu-
ally identifying the Chinese correspondence from 1998 to 2014 accessible at the
ICANN website.
Regarding WSIS and IGF,5
I analyzed WSIS reports and seven IGF annual
reports, which were accessible in the WSIS and IGF databases. The timeframe for
the WSIS included two phases, 2003 and 2005, while the IGF forums included
data from 2007 to 2014. These data sets were examined using textual analysis
(F€
ursich, 2009). In scanning all the WSIS and IGF reports examined in this
research, I followed an interpretative approach to the content, structure, and func-
tions of the messages combined in the text.
This study is also the result of archival research at the ITU headquarters in
Geneva, where it is possible to access reports of joint events organized by the ITU
and the former Chinese Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (now Ministry
of Information Industry). Following my research in Geneva, I found one report
(ITU Seminar of Strategy for Telecommunication Development) held in Beijing in
1994 and 12 news reports published in the ITU magazine Journal T
el
egraphique.
Finally, I was inspired by Angela Xiao Wu’s suggestion to use “vertical” data
to reconstruct Chinese Internet history (Wu, 2015). Thus, I collected data from 20
in-depth interviews with scholars who had regularly participated in ICANN and
IGF meetings and/or the World Internet Conference. All interviewees worked at
Chinese universities (i.e. Tsinghua University, Peking University, Beijing
University of Post and Telecommunication, Beijing Normal University, and the
China Institute of Contemporary International Relations) and/or Chinese NGOs
(i.e. China Internet Network Information Centre, Internet Society of China, and
China Academy of Information and Communications Technology). Some inter-
viewees were also Asian delegates from ICANN representative offices in
Singapore, Geneva, and Beijing. The recorded interviews were conducted between
the summer of 2017 and the summer of 2018. Each interview was approximately
one hour and 30–45 minutes in duration.
Internet governance and multi-stakeholder models
It is commonly acknowledged that the multi-stakeholder model of global Internet
governance has become predominant in mediating an increasingly complex set of
interests, agendas, and implications (Carr, 2015). Nevertheless, this model is not
free from criticism. Indeed, in recent years, scholars not only have questioned
whether the multi-stakeholder model is the best possible choice but also have also
analyzed strategies and narratives used to institutionalize the present stage of
Internet global governance (Chenou, 2014; Hofmann, 2016).
Padovani and Pavan (2007, p. 100), for instance, noted that the lack of diver-
sity in debates on Internet governance had led multi-stakeholder model to become
“a rhetorical exercise aimed at naturalizing criticism rather than a truly unique
participatory mechanism for governing a global resource.” Recent studies have
demonstrated that the asymmetric concentration of technology in the West has
been a scientific influence on the present vision of global governance. Radu (2019)
in particular showed empirically that tensions regarding the development of the
Internet have been present from the beginning. The current rejection of the multi-
stakeholder model can be explained by the relevant disempowerment of civil
Chinese Journal of Communication 3

society in the decision-making process, as well as by the protection of the interests
of the actors that were instrumental in establishing the this model; that is, the US
government and those whose interests are in line with US policies (Carr, 2015). As
pointed out by Hurrell (2007), at least three layers of Internet governance should
be considered: the need to capture common interests; the need to manage unequal
power; and the need to mediate cultural diversity.
Debates on global Internet governance have privileged technical coordination.
As Chenou (2014) showed, this privilege has been possible because of the develop-
ment of the two principles of Internet exceptionalism6
and multi-stakeholdersism.
These two principles are part of a hegemonic discourse that emerged in the 1990s,
which were instrumental in the creation of a power elite and in generating support
for it by non-dominant groups. By the end of the 1990s, the Clinton–Gore
Administration supported the creation of ICANN as driven by neoliberalism, a
shared consensus, a network of interests among the technical community, the US
government, intellectual property rights holders, and actors in the private sector
(Mathiason, 2009). When ICANN was established, there were already several pol-
itical issues that led to challenges to ICANN’s role as a policy-making body. One
of the most crucial challenges concerned ICANN’s legitimacy in allocating country
code top-level domains (ccTLD) that delineated de facto sovereign national cyber-
space spaces. The ICANN primacy in allocating country code top-level domains
was influenced by US neoliberalist values, which was confirmed in debates on
Internet governance in the 1990s regarding the creation of a new market for
Internet domain names based on the self-organization of the Internet community
and on the absence of government contracts (Bygrave Bing, 2009;
Chenou, 2014).
The exceptionalism of global Internet governance was justified by the decision
to bypass ITU in the creation of the ICANN as a private not-for-profit institu-
tion. In the mid-1990s, the ITU contributed to the creation of WSIS, which repre-
sented one of the starting points for the emergence of multi-stakeholder Internet
governance. ITU’s historical role in managing, regulating, and coordinating global
postal services, radio, and television was proposed as the ideal international organ-
ization for coordinating new communication technology to promote fully global,
social, and cultural development. The two WSIS phases – the first one in Geneva
in 2003 and the second in Tunis in 2005 – were also aimed at developing the first
definition of Internet governance as “the development and application by govern-
ments, the private sector and civil society, in their perspectives roles, of shared
principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that shape the
evolution and use of the Internet” (WSIS, 2005). Lyall (2015) reported that in the
first phase in 2003, 175 countries met and adopted a “Declaration of Principles”
and a “Plan of Action.” In the second phase in 2005, a “Commitment to the
Geneva Principles Plan was adopted,” as well as the “Tunis Agenda for the
Information Society” aimed at implementing the Commitment, which, among sev-
eral other issues, called for special attention to developing countries and countries
with economies in transition (Lyall (2015)) . It is important to note that after the
second phase, ITU promoted “action lines” to support the implementation of
WSIS goals.7
One of the main issues raised during the two WSIS phases was to
reconcile the views of countries in the North and the South on the issue of
Internet governance for development.
4 Gianluigi Negro

Finally, ICANN imperfections have also been highlighted at both the political
and scientific levels (Lyall, 2015). Politically, the two WSIS phases ended without
achieving a consensus of the idea, “all governments [with] an equal role and
responsibility in managing DNS8
roots” and of the missed achievement of taking
over ICANN power in the management of critical Internet resources. In pursuing
its goal, however, the ITU contributed to the establishment of the IGF, another
consultative platform supported by developing countries, which was led by China
and members of the G10 group, such as Brazil, South Africa, India, and some
countries in the European Union (Pohle Morganti, 2012). One of IGF goals is
to balance the power of ICANN, which is still considered a “unilateral construc-
tion of a global regime by the United States” (Van Eeten Mueller, 2013, p. 5).
At the academic level, Hill (2014a) noted that at the present stage, the multi-
stakeholder model that currently governs the Internet is not fully democratic.
Indeed, the role of traditional governance institutions through intergovernmental
organizations, such as the ITU, is needed not only to equalize the involvement of
private agents, governments, and civil society in the decision-making process, but
also because of their historical competence in the development of IP-based net-
works and the future of the Internet.9
More importantly, the ITU experience in
managing other public infrastructures and networks could also be applied to
improve Internet governance (Weber, 2013). A useful example is provided by tele-
phone networks. Although the Internet has been described as an exceptional case,
the differences between the Internet and telephony are explained by the “different
historical evolution of the two networks and not to some Internet technological
constraints” (Hill, 2014b, p. 35). Lyall (2015, pp.188–189) noted that the Web uses
electrical communication channels, and thus ITU regulations need to be consid-
ered. However, two of these uses, namely the protocols by which messages are
routed and the domain names, are not under the ITU regulation.10
As shown in the following sections, China has challenged the present multi-
stakeholder model for at least two decades. Although its contribution has involved
a series of stakeholders, the lack of coordination and consistency among them has
negatively influenced expectations for an effective change in global Internet gov-
ernance. The structure of the article is as follows: first, I will introduce the pres-
ence of current Chinese agents both in the ITU and ICANN by presenting the
historical relations between China and ITU first, followed by those between China
and ICANN. Second, I will discuss the findings of the analysis of the interview
data and consider the Chinese perceptions of both ITU and ICANN.
Chinese stakeholders in global internet governance
When I wrote this article, the Chinese presence in ITU and ICANN was remark-
able in terms of its broad representation of governmental representatives, business
actors, NGOs, and scholars.
In the case of ITU, the Chinese government’s view are represented by the
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Private views are proposed by
37 companies operating in the telecommunications, aerospace, and Internet serv-
ices. The academic perspective is represented by nine universities and three insti-
tutes in the Chinese Academy of Sciences.11
Because of the business orientation of
ICANN, the Chinese presence is mainly represented by registrars (i.e. companies

that manage the reservation of Internet domain names). When I wrote this article,
95 companies were accredited to act as registrars in one or more generic top-level
domains (gTLD).
The Chinese political presence in the ICANN Governmental Advisory
Committee, which has a consultative role only, is represented by four politi-
cians.12
According to Galloway (2014), the presence of members of civil society
at ICANN meetings is similar to that of the private sector, although its rate of
engagement in discussions is much higher than that of civil society.
The interview data analyzed in this study showed that Chinese scholars and
Internet NGO managers expressed doubts about the US influence in ICANN and
about the political impact of the US on digital diplomacy. Nonetheless, they sup-
ported the multi-stakeholder model. An engineer at the China Academy of
Information and Communications Technology (CAITC), explained the following:
[We] trust the multi-stakeholder model the most. Although we do believe that
scholars and business operators should be more involved in the decision-making
process, we still believe that the government supports a positive global Internet
governance development, especially for civil society.13
The complexity of the Chinese Internet was also confirmed by a researcher for the
Internet Society of China (ISC), who highlighted the importance of the govern-
ment in Internet guidance:
At the beginning, Internet governance was mainly an academic issue. Indeed,
without the contribution of the Chinese Academy of Science, China would never
be connected to the Internet. Nevertheless, the situation today looks very different;
indeed, the economic impact of Chinese Internet companies is remarkable not
only at the domestic level but also at the international level. Another confirmation
in this regard is provided by our engagement as part of Chinese civil society in the
international discussion. Our role is to improve our domestic management first
and eventually, after an internal discussion, to propose an original Chinese per-
spective at the next ICANN meetings. Nevertheless, due to its historical develop-
ment and political conditions, China needs a different political engagement,
especially compared to Western countries.
The primary role played by governments should not be confused with the
monolithic vision of Chinese Internet governance. Indeed, one independent scholar
and former Internet businessperson said, “The Chinese idea of Internet governance
should be framed as a multi-parties one. Our recent history confirms that we do
support international dialog sharing – not only governmental but also academic,
private, and civil society perspectives.”14
The idea of multi-parties was explained by a professor at the Communications
University of China, who was also a scientific advisor for the World Internet
Conference in Wuzhen:
A multi-player players, multiparty, parties, and multi-actor base is supportive of the
development of the multi-stakeholder model … In this regard, it is worth mentioning
the Chinese International Strategy on Cyberspace (Xinhua, 2017), which can be read
according to three layers of priority. The first one represents the roles of sovereignty,
cybersecurity, and the role played by state actors. This first layer is aimed at limiting
the use of force, conflicts, and acts of aggression. The second layer addresses the
digital economy issue and is clearly opposed to trade barriers and trade
6 Gianluigi Negro

protectionism. The third and last layer deals with civil society, and shows that China
fully respects citizens’ rights and fundamental freedoms in cyberspace and safeguards
their rights to be informed, to participate, to express and to supervise.15
As the next section of this article demonstrates, because of the US influence on
ICANN, as well as the new idea of a multi-stakeholder model based on the multi-
parties approach, it is not surprising that the historical relationship between ITU
and China has been more stable than that between ICANN and China.
Historical relationship with ITU
China joined the ITU in 1920, but the first Chinese delegation at a plenipotentiary
conference attended the conference in Madrid in 1932. On that occasion, the
Nationalist Chinese government signed the ITU convention. Another important
step occurred in 1947 during the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Atlantic City
in the US, when for the first time China was elected to the Executive Council of
the ITU. During the same conference, Chinese was adopted as an official ITU lan-
guage, along with French, English, Spanish, and Russian. After the establishment
of the People’s Republic and the retreat of the Nationalists from the mainland to
Taiwan, the ITU continued to recognize the authorities in Taiwan. The ITU
restored the position of the Chinese mainland in May 1972 during the 27th session
of the ITU Council.
The relations between China and the ITU in the field began in 1994, the year
that China was officially connected to the World Wide Web, the ITU, and the
then Ministry of Post and Telecommunication, which co-organized the ITU
Seminar of Strategy for Telecommunication Development in Beijing. The report of
the seminar notes that Chinese officials asked and obtained the support of the
ITU at both domestic and international levels. Indeed, China benefited from the
ITU’s scientific funding and consulting in developing its own Internet and tele-
communication infrastructure. Moreover, in the same year, China began to raise
concerns about the need to foster national and regional telecommunication pro-
gress, as well as strengthen cooperation with developed and developing countries
in order correct the severe imbalance among the world’s telecommunication facili-
ties and close the gap between the telecom networks in developing and devel-
oped countries.
Recently, the relationship between China and the ITU has become closer. At
the end of 2018, for the second time, Zhao Houlian was elected as the Secretary
General of the ITU. Before joining the ITU, he had been an engineer in the
Designing Institute of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication in China, and
he was an active participant in the Consultative Committee for International
Telephony and Telegraphy (CCITT) in its Study Group meetings as a Chinese
delegate. He also served as Director of the Telecommunication Standardization
Bureau in ITU from 1999 to 2006. He was a coordinator for other international
technical bodies, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Under his first man-
date, Mr Zhao appointed Professor Jiang Song of Tsinghua University as the edi-
tor in chief of ITC Discoveries, ITU’s scientific journal. In addition, in recent
years, the Chinese presence in the ITU has increased not only in staff but also in

influence and in shaping the political and scientific discussion in the field of
Internet governance.
Most of the interview data collected and analyzed in this study included histor-
ical reasons for the positive attitude of China toward the ITU. One interviewee
highlighted the role of the Chinese Ministry of Post and Telecommunication
(MPT) in past years:
Historically, the ITU and the MPT collaborated in the launching of satellites and the
management of radio and television standards. Internet governance became an issue
only during the two WSIS phases or, if you prefer, after the establishment of the
IGF. Before this, the Internet in China had been mainly considered a
domestic issue.16
It is important to emphasize that, especially at the beginning, the Chinese Internet
was regulated very similarly to other traditional media. For this reason, another
interviewee acknowledged that a crucial year in this regard was 1998:
[That year] has to be considered a watershed in the history of Chinese
telecommunications because in that year the MPT, along with the Ministry of Radio,
Film and Television, the China Aerospace Science Industry Corporation and the
China Aviation Industry Corporation were merged to create the new Ministry of
Information Industry (MII) that started to propose and develop new Internet
domestic strategies and policies and represented Chinese instances at ITU.17
After the National People’s Congress in 2008, the newly established Ministry of
Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) replaced the MII at ITU meetings.
In the last years of the 1990s through the first decade of the 2000s, the Chinese
government started to debate the importance of establishing domestic institutions
dedicated to Internet governance.
Historical relations with ICANN
The first official presence of the Chinese government at ICANN meetings was in
1999. Historical studies have shown that China established its first Governmental
Advisory Committee (GAC) of the ICANN in 1999 throughout informal chat
records of an ICANN Board GAC meeting (Galloway, 2014). Although Chinese
delegations regularly attended ICANN meetings until 2009, they were usually
silent and unnoticed (Ars
ene, 2015). One of the first statements by a Chinese dele-
gate was recorded in 2009 during ICANN 20 by the present ITU Secretary
General, Zhao Houlin, who at that time was an ITU official. He had been a mem-
ber of ICANN’s Independent Review Panel Nominating Committee from 2000 to
2002. Thus, it was not surprising that he made a presentation on the implementa-
tion of IPV6, highlighting the importance of ITU in managing the new standard
(Zhao, 2009). In general, however, there were few comments by the Chinese dele-
gation until 2014 during ICANN 52 in Singapore. On that occasion, the Chinese
governmental delegation asked for the stronger involvement of GAC in the deci-
sion-making process. The arguments raised were mainly based on the unbalanced
representation in ICANN, especially regarding Asian and developing countries.
During the same GAC meeting, China also expressed its appreciation for the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)18
stewardship transition, stating
8 Gianluigi Negro

that it was “willing to work with all parties, all countries on IANA transition, and
engage in the relevant discussion” (ICANN49,49, 2014).
The first presence of members of the Chinese civil society at ICANN was offi-
cially recognized by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC)19
in a communiqu
e with ICANN in October 2002, in which the Chinese institutions
confirmed their withdrawal from the Domain Name Supporting Organization
(DNSO, 2002).
Four additional fundamental events in the historical relationship between
ICANN and China occurred recently. The first was the organization in Beijing in
April 2013 of the biggest event in terms of attendees in the history of ICANN
meetings. During ICANN46, GAC issued the Beijing Communiqu
e, in which a set
of “safeguards” for all new generic top-level domains in the fields, among others,
of security, privacy, malware, and consumer protection were proposed. More
importantly, GAC suggested a “public requirement” for the approval of new
“exclusive registry access” gTLDs (ICANN, GAC, 2013). In short, the
Communiqu
e contested ICANN’s general policies, proposing more responsibility
over local jurisdictions in which registrars had their businesses. The GAC’s advice
was approved by ICANN’s New gTLD Program Committee (ICANN, 2013).
The second event was the establishment of an ICANN engagement center in
Beijing. The announcement was made during ICANN 46 public meeting in
Beijing. According to Madame Hu Qiheng, President of the ISC: “This is the
bridge for ICANN and China and it will lead to greater expansion of Internet
development” (ICANN, 2013).
The third event, which was research-oriented, was the signature of a
Memorandum of Understanding between the China Academy of
Telecommunication Research (CATR) of the MIIT and the ICANN in June 2014.
The agreement was aimed to “strengthen active participation in ICANN’S policy-
making process and strengthen the support for the multi-stakeholder participation
and governance model of the Internet” (ICANN, 2014). Among the goals of this
partnership are the following: improving accuracy and timeliness of the translation
of ICANN policy documents into Chinese; improving ICANN’s communication
with Chinese government, media and industry; aligning academic and public
research in IP address and domain name areas; discussing and exchanging opin-
ions on Internet governance; and promoting the Chinese community’s participa-
tion in ICANN affairs and attendance at ICANN meetings.
The fourth event took place in London during the ICANN 50 public meeting
in June 2014. On that occasion, former Cyberspace Affairs Administrator of the
PRC Lu Wei delivered a speech during the welcome ceremony and president’s
opening. Lu expressed satisfaction with the established relations between China
and ICANN and gratitude to ICANN for its “support of the Internet develop-
ment in China over the years” (ICANN, 2014). He also listed seven principles for
improving Internet governance, which were in line with ICANN’s statement of
“one world, one Internet.” Among these principles, it is worth mentioning the
fifth, according to which “the Internet should be a positive force, to inherit and
celebrate the good cultures of mankind” (ICANN, 2014.). Another interesting
finding was that the official ICANN transcript and the video content published
online differed. In particular, the transcript does not include the conclusions of
Mr Lu, who makes a reference to President Xi’s call for “more bilateral and multi-
lateral exchanges and cooperation in cyberspace affairs in China” (ICANN

YouTube Channel, 2014). In general, Chinese relations with ICANN can be con-
sidered ambivalent. On one hand, China continues to support a multi-stakeholder
model with a strong normative approach led by governments; on the other hand,
its presence at ICANN activities is growing.
As the last section of this article demonstrates, the increasingly active role of
Chinese delegations in international global Internet discourse is not enough to pro-
mote a new version of the multi-stakeholder model because it has been limited by con-
tradictions and inconsistency.
Contradictions, issues, and inconsistency in the Chinese Internet governance vision
As described in the previous section, although most Chinese academic and NGO
delegates expressed generally positive attitudes toward ITU and IGF, some
expressed concerns during the WSIS phases. For instance, during the Second
Preparatory Committee of WSIS on Internet governance in Geneva in February
2003, the head of the Chinese delegation, Ambassador Sha Zukang, criticized the
status of Internet governance:
[The situation is] monopolized by one state and one corporation that neither facilitate
further growth of the Internet, nor fully embodies the principle of equity and full
representation. (Sha, 2003)
The lack of confidence in ITU was also emphasized a few years later. During IGF
2009, Chen Yin, head of the Chinese delegation, raised three problems that
reflected the consultative role of the event:20
the IGF’s difficulties in managing the
issue of unilateral control of critical resources; the lack of equal representation for
developing countries; and the lack of a systematic organization to address import-
ant issues (Chen, 2009). The Chinese delegation proposed the assignment to the
United Nations (UN) a more operative role and the allocation of a budget sup-
ported by the UN and aimed at aiding developing countries to participate in the
IGF meetings. The disappointment of the Chinese delegates was expressed during
the same IGF meeting. They intimated that China might not renew its support for
a five-year extension of IGF’s mandate.
The issue of imbalance has also been present in the academic environment. A
professor interviewed for this study at Tsinghua University said the following:
Today, more than three billion Internet users are based in more than 20 developing
countries. At this point, it is crucial to consider cultural values and different
economic and political environments when we discuss Internet governance.21
Another professor interviewed for this study at Peking University explained the
historical issue of imbalance:
The USA has benefited from monopolistic advantages in terms of technologies,
resources, and standards. Nevertheless, in 2014, US Internet users represented 10% of
the global Internet population. This trend contributed to increasing the pressure of
US monopolistic power. One of the most important issues in this regard is the
management of root nameservers under ICANN control. What surprises us is the
US’s obstruction to letting more international representative institutions like the
United Nations be part of the management too.22
10 Gianluigi Negro

Serious concerns in the global Internet governance debate were expressed by the
second researcher at the ISC interviewed in this study:
The Internet is already probably the most important medium nowadays. I am afraid
that governments have not enough power to control it. In my view, the government
will become increasingly important in managing the Internet because of the declining
power of the United Nations. Even more frightening is the fact that this international
organization is facing the weakest moment of its history since its foundation after the
second world war.
Doubts about the effectiveness of ITU and IGF concern not only the US pres-
ence. Indeed, two interviewed scholars agreed that the role of the Chinese govern-
ment is still very limited. One reason is that “the main body of Internet
governance in China, at least at the domestic level, is the State Council, which has
no impact at all at ITU.”23
These interviewees noted that “in most of the cases
the level of discussion at ITU is very technical and not political.”24
Therefore, the
Chinese academic community asked for more engagement in the decision process
and ITU involvement, lamenting the Chinese government attitude:
Our job is not appreciated. We acknowledge that our suggestions and advice are not
fully understood by the government, especially when the discussion is taken at the
international level.25
Despite the criticism about the US influence and the ICANN role from the
Chinese perspective, are these interviewees interviewed for this study believed that
ICANN supports the dialog on Internet governance. Indeed, ICANN’s approach
was considered positive and inclusive. A scholar based in Beijing expressed appre-
ciation for the “high presence of scholars and engineers. We do support the active
exchange of ideas on Internet governance.” Nevertheless, concerns about
American non-profit institutions were not lacking. The most critical issue was the
“lack of efficiency in the system.”26
One interviewee expressed that the problem
was that “Chinese delegates are not fully included in the layers of the decision-
making process.” A former businessperson who runs an NGO expressed the opin-
ion that “several statements from civil society members are basically useless.” In
general, “the fact that everybody could express his/her personal vision does not
necessarily mean that he could contribute to concrete development of Internet
governance. This is one of the reasons I and other colleagues do not consider the
ICANN system effective.”27
Another major concern was the lack of preparation of civil society delegates in
technical discussions.
To join the international discussion on Internet governance, delegates are sup-
posed to have at least a technical background and a general knowledge. Some del-
egates from China and other countries have no clue about Internet resources and
how standards really work.28
Concerns about ICANN could be explained not only by its operational rules
and mechanisms but also by historical Chinese concerns about US influence.
According to an NGO representative at ITU, Chinese delegates, governmental
ones in particular, believe that cyberspace is undoubtedly an “extension of the
physical world.”29
Thus, the government is the most authoritative power for assur-
ing and stability. According to the same ITU delegate:

Even though ICANN’s GAC has only a consultative and not a deliberative
power, the fact that ICANN refused to recognize Taiwan as “Chinese Taipei”
reflects a contradiction of the multi-stakeholder model. The Chinese government is
very serious about its status at the international level. ITU has recognized the
People’s Republic of China since the end of the Seventies.30
However, it is also true that the events in recent years have been welcomed,
which was confirmed by the third researcher from the ISC interviewed in
this study:
In recent years, relations between China and ICANN have improved significantly.
Since the ICANN 46 public meeting in Beijing and the IANA stewardship transition,
I have seen improvements in ICANN internationalization as well as in international
domain name policies aimed to promote the growth of the China Internet
community.31
Finally, Chinese scholars were not optimistic about the concrete effectiveness of
ITU, IGF, and ICANN, but they supported the new idea of a multi-stake-
holder model:
Most of the international organizations in the field of Internet governance
organizations do not have binding effects. Policy decisions, discussions, or
recommendations, etc., from them might have binding effects. We do believe that the
international community needs to discuss present and future issues. One of the major
concerns is that the discussion is mainly dominated by the US approach. Therefore,
together with other developing countries and inspired by the NWICO32
initiative, we
do support initiatives such as the BRICS summit and the World Internet Conference
to promote an alternative vision to that of the status quo.33
(Thussu, 2015)
This approach was not only welcomed and supported within and by China but
also shared by other countries, which was confirmed by a researcher at
the CNNIC:
Countries like Russia support multilateral governance, and even the EU is more open
to developing a dialog with us. Our goal is to reach a more balanced order in the
field of Internet governance, which, at the present stage, is dominated by
neoliberalist values.34
Ironically, despite the criticism of the US, one of the interviewees suggested learn-
ing from the US model in order to improve Chinese strategies in the global
Internet governance discourse. A researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society
at Zhejiang University proposed taking the example of the US government
because officials at all levels, as well as think tanks and media, are all quite con-
sistent in presenting their views. This allows the US to show a credible and strong
synergy in the eyes of the international community. In contrast, because it is still
at its preliminary stage, our governance lacks consistency, especially among the
state agencies involved in developing an original Chinese Internet governance. Our
future goal is to establish a stronger internal consensus among media and domes-
tic academic circles and within society that will be more credible at the inter-
national level, with the ultimate goal of transferring the ICANN’s management
power to the ITU or putting it under UN supervision. To reach this goal, the
12 Gianluigi Negro

engagement of non-governmental actors, such as academics, enterprises, and think
tanks, is crucial.35
Discussion and conclusion
The results of the analysis of the interview data indicate that the Chinese voice in
the field of global Internet governance is not monolithic. Although several scholars
and NGOs expressed their dissatisfaction with their limited impact on governmen-
tal decisions, they believed in alterations in the status quo to limit the market-ori-
ented approach, which is mainly supported by the US. Importantly, the findings
of this study are in line with previous empirical studies that showed that the
Chinese Internet is not isolated. Ars
ene (2012) and Jia and Winseck (2018) demon-
strated the economic interdependency with foreign businesses. The present study
demonstrated Chinese participation and support for a multi-stakeholder perspec-
tive in the global debate about Internet governance.
The second finding concerns historical relationships. Although the Chinese
scholars interviewed in this study were not engaged in the decision-making pro-
cess, they identified ITU as a credible international organization for coordinating
global governance for at least three reasons. First, it has had a longer relationship
with China; second, it supports the role of the government in regulating the
Internet; third, it is more effective and authoritative than ICANN in taking deci-
sions, and it is more respectful of political, economic, and cultural diversity.
Furthermore, the first engagement of China in the Internet governance debate
took place between the late 1990s and 2010. At the beginning of their involvement,
the Chinese delegations limited themselves to acknowledging ICANN and attend-
ing its meetings. In contrast, their approach to the ITU was positive, especially
during the two WSIS phases. As noted in previous researches, in its 20 years of
Internet governance, Chinese delegations have changed their attitudes. One of the
most important events was the decision of the Chinese government to stop attend-
ing ICANN’s GAC meetings from 2009 to 2011 (Ars
ene, 2016; Mueller, 2012).
Recently, the stewardship transition in the IANA has generated confidence
in ICANN.
The third finding demonstrated the ambivalent approach to Chinese Internet
governance in both ITU and ICANN. The Chinese scholars and NGOs managers
interviewed for this study criticized this approach because it differed from that of
the US, which ostensibly supported pluralism. On one hand, the US approach has
been criticized for being too influential and counterproductive to the progress of
the multi-stakeholder model. On the other hand, some interviewees suggested that
the US model should be used as an example to promote the Chinese view of
Internet governance.
Overall, although the findings indicated that there is not a consistent vision of
Internet governance, it demonstrated a shared perspective on multi-stakeholderism
to strengthen the role of governments, as well as the ITU model. This perspective
was justified by a multiparty framework based on political, economic, and social
dimensions in which governments would occupy the most important positions in
the decision-making process.
Finally, the findings of the present study contribute to the understanding of
the role of China in Internet governance. Indeed, as the stakeholders’ interviews

demonstrated, the Chinese presence in international organizations is an indicator
that that China is not isolationist but is a promoter of an alternative to the status
quo. China supports neither an intergovernmental nor a multilateral model. Its
attitude is not unitary and seems ambivalent because it also accepts a multi-stake-
holder model. The Chinese view is in line with De Nardis and Raymond’s (2013,
p. 2) general theories of global Internet governance, according to which “multi-
stakeholderism should not be viewed as a value in itself applied homogenously to
all Internet governance.”
In future research, the analysis of Chinese Internet governance will be benefi-
cial not only for avoiding simplistic and misleading dichotomies in studying global
Internet governance, but also for strengthening a nuanced understanding of the
global influence of the Chinese Internet.
Notes
1. China Internet Network Information Center.
2. International Telecommunication Union.
3. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
4. According to Thussu, the definition of “cyber capitalism with Chinese characteristics”
reflects “a system that gives high priority to cyber sovereignty, creating and sustaining
the world’s largest online market for a global Sino sphere; establishing domestic cyber
properties and protecting them from competition form global digital giants by
introducing and implanting strict regulations regimes, and globalization of Chinese
digital corporations” (Thussu, 2018, p. 26).
5. Internet Governance Forum.
6. According to Chenou, “The expression ‘Internet exceptionalism’ (Wu, 2010) is derived
from the notion of American exceptionalism, According to Internet exceptionalism,
cyberspace is terra nullius in which social relations and laws have no historical
existence and must be reinvented. Thus, proponents of Internet exceptionalism
advocated the abolition of existing rules and the creation of a totally new governance
system in which the overarching role of the state was to be replaced by the initiatives
of individual actors” (2014, p. 216).
7. These WSIS follow-up activities are not included in the ordinary ITU budget but are
funded by participants. As this article will show, this practice has been contested by
Chinese delegations.
8. Domain Name System.
9. ITU members in Resolutions 101, 102 and 133 acknowledged the equal engagement of
private agents, governments, and civil society (ITU Revisions of Resolution
Guadalajara, 2010, cited in Hill, 2014a).
10. At present, the set of protocols is IPv4, but an ongoing process of replacement by
IPv6 was supported by the ITU World Telecom Standardization Assembly (WTSA) in
2009 and by the World Telecommunication ITC Policy Forum (WTPF) in 2008.
11. ITU Membership https://www.itu.int/online/mm/scripts/gensel9?_ctryid=1000100502
12. http://icannregistrars.org/members-list/
13. Interview #13.
14. Interview #14.
15. Interview #19.
16. Interview #1.
17. Interview #2.
18. IANA is the authority that coordinates Internet running operations. Among its main
roles are the management of domain names, the coordination of number resources,
and the management of protocol assignments. It is the oldest Internet institution.
Since the stewardship ended, IANA operations have been coordinated by ICANN
(NTIA, 2016).
14 Gianluigi Negro

19. CNNIC is the administrative agency responsible for Chinese Internet affairs. It is
supervised by the Ministry of Information Industry of the PRC. It is the institution
that regulates China’s .cn domain, the Chinese Domain Name System, which
internationalizes domain names that contain Chinese characters, as well as ISP-related
allocations in Chinese territory.
20. According to the Mandate of the IGF, the forum has no direct decision-making
authority. http://www.intgovforum.org/mandate.htm.
21. Interview #12.
22. Interview #17.
23. Interview #2.
24. Interview #3.
25. Interview #4.
26. Interview #7.
27. Interview #8.
28. Interview #9.
29. Interview #6.
30. For this reason, the Chinese government stopped sending delegates to GAC ICANN
meetings from 2001 to 2009.
31. In December 2016, ICANN published a general authorization for release of all letter
two-character ASCII labels for gTLD Registry Operators (ICANN, 2016).
32. The New World Information and Communication Order is an expression proposed by
the UNESCO MacBride Commission to debate more balanced media representations
of developing countries.
33. Interview #15.
34. Interview #16.
35. Interview #20.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the editors and the three anonymous reviewers for their
constructive comments on the article. Particular thanks go to Professor Jin Jianbin and
Professor Fang Xingdong, who supported me in developing the field research in China and
in recruiting the participants in the study. I also thank Dr Heather Heywood for facilitating
my research at the ITU Library and Archives and Dr Hong Shen for her insightful
suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
The research for this article was supported by the Sino Swiss Science and Technology
Grant EG 02-122016. (Main applicant, China Media Observatory, Universit
a della Svizzera
Italiana [USI]; host institution, the School of Journalism and Communication,
Tsinghua University).
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