U.S. & China Approaches to Global Internet Governance: "New Bipolarity" in Terms of "the Network Society"

Abstract

From the perspective of power transition theory, international relations system is gradually entering the phase of "power transition" where the United States, as a global hegemon, seeks to maintain the existing world order, and China establishes alternative international formats to reorganize the system of international relations and strengthen its structural power. Cyberspace and technological sphere are becoming the field of non-violent competition between states, which makes the study of global governance of cyberspace critical for the understanding of the outlines of the "new bipolarity". The analysis in the paper is focused on U.S. & China approaches to global governance of cyberspace through the prism of Manuel Castells' theory of "network society". The authors aimed to determine the directions of the U.S. and China policy in the course of four types of "power" in cyberspace: networking power, network power, networked power and network-making power. Present analysis concludes that the United States play crucial role in the course of all four types of "power" at the expense of decentralized model of Internet governance which is based on the idea of "multistakeholderism". NGO and other entities play a decisive role in such a model. Nonetheless, China has already developed necessary tools for reforming the present system of global governance of cyberspace based on centralized model with the leading role of United Nations as an international governance organization and state as a basic actor. The main beneficiaries of the centralized model are developing countries, which are unable to influence the global governance of cyberspace under the dominance of private companies from developed countries.