*Well, so much for a "flat world."
https://medium.com/china-media-project/china-s-cyber-diplomacy-b4fa20a210f#.96nlp8kt0
(…)
"In November last year, when the 1st World Internet Conference was held in Wuzhen, Xi Jinping sent a message of congratulations to the event. This year, Xi attended in person and made a speech, signalling clearly that China’s leadership was giving the conference high priority.
"The topic of Xi Jinping’s speech was “promoting the transformation of the global system of internet governance” (推进全球互联网治理体系变革), for which he outlined “four principles” (四项原则) and made “five propositions” (五点主张). This was the core agenda of the World Internet Conference.
"It is the hope of China’s government that a new concept for internet governance can be disseminated across the world, and the first and essential principle of this concept is the notion of “respecting cyber-sovereignty” (尊重网络主权). In more concrete terms this means, in Xi Jinping’s words, “respecting each country’s right to choose its own internet development path, its own internet management model, its own public policies on the internet, and to participate on an equal basis in the governance of international cyberspace — avoiding cyber-hegemony, and avoiding interference in the internal affairs of other countries.”
"Not surprisingly, one of the most important diplomatic guests at the conference, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, supported Xi Jinping’s proposals in his own speech.
"In fact, China and Russia have acted in close partnership to promote this principle of [internet] governance. And as chance would have it, the day before the curtain opened on WIC2, China, Russia and other allies achieved a limited foreign relations victory at another important conference on internet governance.
"On December 16, the 10th meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS10) was held at United Nations headquarters in New York. As the name suggests, the chief task of this meeting was to review the implementation of WSIS work since the holding of the first summit 10 years ago in Geneva. While the results of the review are not binding on participants, it remains an important United Nations document, and it could have a strong impact on the future development of the global internet governance system.
"Through a six-month process of negotiation [over the language of the WSIS10 document], China, Russia and other countries successfully lobbied for the inclusion of the word “multilateral” (多边) [in the final language of WSIS10]. This word had drawn fierce opposition from Western countries, companies and civil society groups throughout the summit…."
