(East-West Question) Xu Peixi: Why has the Internet become another "battlefield" in the Russia-Ukraine conflict?

　　China News Agency, Beijing, March 13th: Xu Peixi: Why has the Internet become another "battlefield" in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict?

　　China News Agency reporter Wu Xu

　　With the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the sanctions initiated by Western countries against Russia have involved many fields. Among them, the collective "blocking" of Russia by Western Internet technology companies has attracted attention from the outside world.

At present, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, etc. have announced to stop selling products and services in Russia, while Google, Twitter and other companies have blocked or restricted the content released by Russian media on their own platforms.

Cogent Communications, one of the world's largest Internet backbone network providers, also recently announced a "disconnection action" for Russian customers.

　　Sanctions against Russia in the cyber field directly caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine have gradually escalated.

What are the effects of "disconnecting the Internet" and "blocking"?

Will Russia suffer a "cyber nuclear bomb"?

How to deal with the complex situation of network information?

China News Agency "East and West Questions" recently exclusively interviewed Xu Peixi, a professor at Communication University of China and a member of the Multi-Party Advisory Committee of China Internet Governance Forum, to analyze and interpret this.

The interview transcript is as follows:

China News Service: Some analysts believe that Russia may encounter a situation like a "cyber nuclear bomb". How serious do you think the current sanctions against Russia are?

What will be the impact?

Xu Peixi:

At present, the US Internet backbone operators Cogent Communications and Lumen Technologies have stopped providing services to Russian customers. Although this action does not disconnect Russia from the Internet, it does not reach the level of "disconnection". Actions and even higher-level actions have long been planned, but these actions take place at the base layer of the Internet, and this kind of action against major powers is unprecedented, so it is widely concerned.

　　Some analysts compare the actions in the cyber and financial fields to a "cyber nuclear bomb" after the "financial nuclear bomb". Previously, the SWIFT system disconnected from some Russian banks. Although this statement is a bit exaggerated, it belongs to A kind of prediction of future risks, which deserves special attention.

Such actions erode people's trust in the current global Internet governance mechanism, increase the risk of fragmentation of the Internet's root domain name system, and sound the alarm of a digital cold war at the Internet's base layer.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Wang Gang

China News Service: Recently, a number of Western media said that Russia is preparing to disconnect from the Internet, but according to Russian media reports, the Russian government's response to this is that it will not disconnect from the Internet internally.

What do you think of Russia's previous nationwide "disconnection test"?

What is the most essential difference between "self-determination" and "other-determination"?

Xu Peixi:

Russia's "internet test" is actually a "prevention test".

In December 2019, in order to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the Russian Internet under any circumstances, the Russian Ministry of Communications and relevant government departments and enterprises held the first all-Russian Internet, Internet of Things and communication network operation stability assurance exercise, which is said to be a success.

　　Russia has made adequate preparations for this test, both legally and technically.

In May 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the "Sovereign Internet Law", requiring Russia to build a set of Internet infrastructure at home that is independent of the international Internet to ensure that it can still operate stably in the event of external network interruptions and other shocks.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Wang Xiujun

　　Extreme solutions such as the disconnection test stem from Russia's historical insecurity and the experience after the upheaval in Eastern Europe.

Russia is a country dominated by security thinking.

Against the background of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the change of course in Eastern Europe, major Western countries have not given up their siege and interception of Russia, but have intensified their efforts and continued to impose economic sanctions.

　　These all-round containment behaviors have led to Russia’s economic dilemma to a certain extent, and reversely strengthened and shaped Russia’s traditional national security perspective, leading Russia to often take tit-for-tat countermeasures, such as the Sovereign Internet Law and the disconnection test. such.

　　However, being prepared to be disconnected and being disconnected are two entirely different motives, and no country wants to pay the price of being disconnected from the international Internet, so unless there is a deadly cyber attack on Russia’s critical infrastructure or other unforeseen circumstances Otherwise, Russia will not and will not have to disconnect from the Internet.

China News Service: The list of Western Internet technology companies that have "blocked" the Russian market and users is getting longer and longer.

Ukraine has also previously asked the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to impose tough sanctions on Russia.

Why is the Internet a "weapon"?

Xu Peixi:

The blocking of Russia by content platform companies such as Twitter, Google, and YouTube are mostly actions at the Internet application layer, which can be classified into the category of information services. Some people think that such actions are still within the scope of national sovereignty and are not worth overdoing it. Astonishment is fundamentally different from actions that take place at the base layer.

Google's corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Liu Guanguan

　　Ukraine requires ICANN to impose sanctions on Russia, requires ICANN to revoke Russia's national top-level domain name, and shut down the domain name root server located in Russia. This request is an absurd behavior that is doomed to fail in terms of the ICANN mechanism itself. Any one of the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee Members can veto such a request with a single vote, and ICANN unequivocally and unequivocally rejected Ukraine's unreasonable request, maintaining its neutrality in the matter.

　　However, in many countries, including the United States and Ukraine, populist ideology continues to spread, and the absolute national security perspective continues to generalize, preferring to use a populist agenda to kidnap the national agenda and geopolitics to kidnap technical issues. This countercurrent, This led to a battle over the course of future Internet governance.

China News Service reporter: There is a lot of news about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on the Internet. Before, both Russia and Ukraine have made some rumors. Do you think this kind of online information confrontation will continue to escalate in the future?

Xu Peixi:

In the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict, cyber-attacks against key infrastructure are not very obvious. Russia has not even implemented standardized operations such as disconnection and power outages against Ukraine, so the dimension of "cyber warfare" is not new. material.

　　I think "information warfare" in the digital age is a key dimension to interpret the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

The power to characterize war as good and evil does not depend entirely on the truth, but often on the power of the state to communicate, which adds to the perception of peace and justice.

　　This conflict clearly shows that Russia wants to use hard power to curb the endless expansion of NATO, a Western military interest group, while the United States, which is unwilling to face Russia on the battlefield, is trying to use soft power to mobilize international public opinion to achieve in various fields. Weakening Russian goals.

Russia is not afraid to express its own opinions because of its relatively weak position in international communication, but strives to present the internal causes of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict from the historical and geopolitical background.

　　Ukraine put aside grand historical narratives and macro narratives, focused on the details of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict itself, and carried out emotional mobilization. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used social media to frequently publish news.

Some countries in the United States and Europe have blocked Russia's voice channels and used the so-called political correctness principle to define those voices representing Russia's position as traitors and proxies.

　　At the same time, grassroots and individual citizen narratives are on the rise in the era of social media, using oneself as the narrative subject and platform accounts as the main channel to express mixed opinions, which has added new variables to the game of public opinion among major powers. Everyone sees The truth may have been refracted and dismembered countless times.

Social media platforms thus constitute a unique information game field.

Photo by Zhai Weikai issued by China News Agency

China News Agency reporter: In the face of the impact of the online information level in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, what measures do you think can be taken to deal with it?

Xu Peixi:

War mentality has fully spread to cyberspace, making it a new battlefield.

The Geneva Internet Platform, a Swiss research institute, observes that 53 countries in the world have announced that they have cyber combat forces or have shown the ability to carry out cyber attacks, including the United States, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Other Western countries and BRICS countries such as Russia, India, South Africa, and Brazil already have cyber combat forces.

　　With regard to the information level confrontation, this should be treated as a separate category.

Low-cost interference methods such as online rumors, false information, deepfakes, leaked news, and social robots have been widely used.

From the Arab Spring to the U.S.-Russian election turmoil, to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the game of international public opinion in the digital age has entered a stage of out-of-control, which constitutes an important dimension of national security.

China News Service: What do you think the current situation has on the international governance of basic Internet resources?

Xu Peixi:

On the one hand, we must continue to defend "one global network, interconnectedness", never take distrust actions first, express more constructive remarks, and compare the technical attributes of the Internet represented by the Internet domain name system, protocols, and root servers with others. Attributes should be treated separately, continue to support the existing systems and governance concepts represented by ICANN, promote the maintenance of the relative independence and neutrality of basic Internet resources and their governance, promote the internationalization and globalization of their governance, and avoid their politicization. , ideological, and avoid providing excuses and excuses for hardline and populist spokespersons in the United States to re-engage in ICANN-related issues.

　　On the other hand, all countries must see the early warning of the future conflict between Russia and Ukraine and make a response plan.

In the eyes of the current US-led geopolitical traders, although the initial values ​​of "one global network" are still important, they cannot be abandoned. The current sanctions, containment and information blackmail against Russia may be completely copied to other countries.

(over)

　Interviewee Profile:

　　Xu Peixi, professor and doctoral supervisor of Communication University of China, director of the Cyberspace Global Governance Research Center, a member of the Internet Diplomacy Expert Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a member of the China Internet Governance Forum Multi-Party Advisory Committee, and a member of the Internet Communication Expert Committee. His lectures include communication and international communication. , Network Society and Communication, etc. His main research areas are Internet governance, network security, and international communication. His representative works include Global Communication Policy: From Traditional Media to the Internet (Tsinghua University Press), Global Governance of Cyberspace: The Origin of International Rules , Differences and Trends" (Social Sciences Literature Publishing House) and so on.