WIC beginning of end to US hegemony

The First World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, this weekend is the first time that China is hosting such a global meeting on the Internet. The conference, whose focus is on cyberspace governance, marks the end of a US sole-party governance model of the Internet, says an article on guancha.cn. Excerpts:

The Internet was born in the United States 45 years ago. It promoted a number of innovations in technology, and business models, as well as the formation of Internet governance rules and values. The Internet’s spirit of openness, sharing, freedom and equality are now the core values of human civilization.

But the US’ hegemony of Internet governance in past 10 years is against the spirit of the Internet. The US is trying to monopolize the rule-making power and governance rights with its technological strengths.

Worse, the US intends to sacrifice the other countries’ security for its own. To some extent, the US abuse of its dominance power of the Internet has already become one of the biggest problems for global Internet governance.

By the end of November, the total number of people using Internet reached three billion, among whom two thirds are from the developing countries. The US netizen’s population only accounts for less than 10 percent of the total. Chinese net user population takes more than 20 percent of the total. In the next three billion net users, 90 percent will come from developing countries. The spread of the Internet is a progress of human civilization, as well as challenge for governance in the new space.

Although China has the largest netizen population, it will not pursue hegemony in the cyberspace. China will take the lead to unite all countries, including the US, to form a new governance mechanism of the Internet to promote inter-connectivity, sharing of development fruits and joint governance.

The Internet governance is complicated as it involves interests of different groups in different fields. Only an open, inclusive and plural mechanism can fit its needs.

Although Chinese government has invited the US to participate in the conference, the US government still appears cold and indifferent, if not blind to the true situation.

Apparently the US is not willing to share the leading rights of the Internet with the rest of the world. The process of ending US’ online hegemony for shared governance must be difficult. But the World Internet Conference is a good beginning for the process.

Starting an era entails consistent efforts. Hopefully, the meeting in Wuzhen can give more opportunities to technicians to share their wisdom on collective governance, rather than only government officials and businessmen.