Following Jasanoff and Kim’s concept of “sociotechnical imaginaries,” this chapter examines the rhetoric, regulatory frameworks and policies employed in constructing imaginaries of digital sovereignty in China, Russia, and India – three member countries of BRICS and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation). A central finding is that these sociotechnical imaginaries center on protecting national cultural identity, or “cultural sovereignty,” against the “free flow of information,” a motive echoing NWICO debates in the 1970s and 1980s and WSIS discussions in the early 2000s. The development of these countries’ digital sovereignty imaginaries is deduced from their unique histories and governance approaches. Furthermore, the SCO’s crucial role as a platform to promote the partly authoritarian Chinese conception of cyber/information sovereignty is demonstrated. Another key finding is that imaginaries of digital sovereignty relate to a non-secular understanding of the state in all three examined countries. In this sense, the global emergence of digital sovereignty is comparable to the evolution of Westphalian sovereignty from the confessional wars in early modern Europe. The chapter concludes that an informed debate on digital sovereignty must consider both the dangers of digital authoritarianism and the productive potential of digital decolonization.

The chapter gives a detailed account of Chinese cybersecurity policy as an example of a state-oriented model of internet governance. After describing China’s early attitudes towards cyberspace, it analyses in detail its cybersecurity policy under the Xi Jinping administration, and how its concept of ‘cyber sovereignty’ differs from Western countries’ approaches to cyberspace. It also examines China’s efforts to export the Chinese model of cyber laws and regulations based on the concept of cyber sovereignty to non-liberal countries. It also analyses how the country is actively involved in the formation of international rules for cybersecurity in order to spread this concept.

This chapter builds on the understanding of fuzzy logic regulatory practice, but re-focuses on the main topic of the book: the policy contradictions between the emergence of a seemingly more restrictive cyber regime in China since 2014 and simultaneous announcements of new top-down policies for encouraging entrepreneurial activity. It argues that China’s data and cyber security laws cannot be understood without first understanding both the Chinese government’s Informatisation drive (which includes the Internet Plus policy) and the concept of Network Sovereignty. The chapter is also necessary to understand China’s unique system of governance that is well suited to promote innovations proposed by private Chinese tech companies.

Do China’s data localisation laws, which were introduced as part of China’s Network Sovereignty policy, adversely affect – or are they likely to adversely affect – open innovation in Chinese AI firms, which is a key goal of China’s Internet Plus policy?