China’s use of rhetorical adaptation in development of a global cyber order: a case study of the norm of the protection of the public core of the internet

How does China shape a global information order, regarding the norms and institutions that manage cyberspace? Cyber norms are the preferred tool to govern cyberspace given the rapidity of technological change. China’s advances ‘cyber sovereignty’ (wangluo zhuquan) norms to reorient internet governance to the United Nations and specialist state-led international fora and emphasise the dominant position of the state regarding information management. The paper uses a critical case study of a foundational cyber norm: the protection of the public core of the internet, which focuses on ‘safeguarding the functionality and integrity of the core logical and physical infrastructure of the internet from unwarranted state interventions’ (Broeders 2017a). Using descriptive research drawing from primary and secondary sources in Chinese and English languages, I highlight China’s use of rhetorical adaptation – a strategy and set of tactics that simultaneously modify norm content while also deflecting and reducing critiques of norm obstructionism to modify cyber norms. China’s use of rhetorical adaptation renovates norm content by centring the state as the public core of the internet that must be protected – in short internet infrastructure security is in service to state security.