A new report by ARTICLE 19 looks into the promotion of China's cybersecurity norms in Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam; and offers Taiwan's rights-based approach as a model.
This statement was originally published on article19.org on 1 March 2025.
ARTICLE 19’s new report reveals how China is expanding its digital authoritarian model of cybersecurity governance across the Indo-Pacific, posing a grave threat to people’s rights – regionally and globally.
Through its Digital Silk Road, China is not only developing digital infrastructure, but also aggressively promoting its own norms for governing these technologies. One area where this is most pronounced is in the promotion of cybersecurity norms. The success of China’s digital norms-setting in this critical realm of internet governance risks supercharging digital authoritarianism regionally – and normalising Beijing’s model internationally – at the expense of human rights, internet freedom, and democracy.
Cybersecurity with Chinese Characteristics establishes a baseline understanding of China’s repressive cybersecurity norms and reveals how it is smuggling them, via the Trojan Horse of digital development, into 3 Indo-Pacific countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam. It also presents a compelling alternative model of cybersecurity governance: Taiwan’s transparent, rights-based, multi-stakeholder approach.
Michael Caster, Head of the Global China Programme at ARTICLE 19, said:
‘China’s aggressive promotion of authoritarian cybersecurity norms in the Indo-Pacific is a canary in the coalmine for the international community. Because make no mistake: Xi Jinping’s ambitions do not end there. We have it in their own words: China’s ambition is to lead the world in digital infrastructure, and with it, to set the rules for a new digital authoritarian future of its own design.
Few countries are as well-versed in responding to China’s cyberattacks and resisting its cyber norms as Taiwan. As our report argues, if the international community is serious about resisting China’s repressive global ambitions, it must urgently increase its engagement with Taiwan.’
Through in-depth case studies, our report examines how countries in the Indo-Pacific region have adopted China’s norms in law, policy, and practice – from Indonesia’s embrace of ‘cyber sovereignty’ to Pakistan’s China-style firewall to Vietnam’s repressive content moderation – with catastrophic consequences for people’s right to free expression and access to information.
Faced with these threats, alternative norms for digital governance are urgently needed. As our report shows, Taiwan’s alternative, which seeks to balance the threats emanating from Beijing with efforts to avoid infringing on people’s human rights and fundamental freedoms, has much to offer global advocates engaged in developing these norms.
This report provides a vital roadmap to identify, understand, and counter the profound human rights implications of China’s digital norm-setting ambitions. It is an urgent call to action for policymakers, technologists, and human rights advocates worldwide.
