[The National Cyberspace Security] Strategy fully embodies General Secretary Xi Jinping’s strategic thinking on building a Cyber Great Power and serves as a programmatic document guiding the country’s cybersecurity work. 

战略充分体现了习近平总书记网络强国战略思想，是指导国家网络安全工作的纲领性文件。

Wang Xiujun, CAC Deputy Director, quoted in “CAC Releases National Cyberspace Security Strategy, Outlines Missions including Safeguarding Cyberspace Sovereignty (国家网信办发布《国家网络空间安全战略》 提出捍卫网络空间主权等任务),” Xinhua, December 27, 2016.

Executive Summary

China’s National Cyberspace Security Strategy explicitly connects cybersecurity with the strategic objective of building a Cyber Great Power. Released in December 2016, it identifies nine missions spanning sovereignty, national security, infrastructure protection, online culture, governance, defensive capabilities, and international cooperation. Xinhua’s release report offers a concise introduction to that framework. The translation below shows how Beijing places cybersecurity within a wider national project linking development, security, and China’s role in cyberspace.

The National Ambition Behind the Cybersecurity Missions

On December 27, 2016, the Cyberspace Administration of China released the National Cyberspace Security Strategy (国家网络空间安全战略) following approval by the Central Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization. Xinhua’s report summarized its nine principal missions and explained its relationship to Cyber Great Power.

That relationship is stated directly. The report quotes CAC Deputy Director Wang Xiujun describing the strategy as embodying Xi Jinping’s strategic thinking on Cyber Great Power. The strategy’s own Objectives section names building a Cyber Great Power as the strategic objective.

Notably, international cooperation should be understood from the strategy’s larger framework. It is both an expressed objective for the cyberspace environment and a practical mission pursued in support of national sovereignty, security, development, and the declared ambition to build a Cyber Great Power. Thus, cooperation is real, but it is not the end state. It is a tool. The ultimate objective is the attainment of Cyber Great Power status.

For readers of this website, the report provides a compact route into the document’s strategic logic. Infrastructure protection, governance, defensive capabilities, and international cooperation belong within a common framework of national development and security.

Nine Missions in Pursuit of Cyber Great Power

Author’s Note: A lightly edited Google Translate machine translation of the Xinhua article “CAC Releases National Cyberspace Security Strategy, Outlines Missions Including Safeguarding Cyberspace Sovereignty” follows.

CAC Releases National Cyberspace Security Strategy, Outlines Missions Including Safeguarding Cyberspace Sovereignty

国家网信办发布《国家网络空间安全战略》 提出捍卫网络空间主权等任务

Li Yahong 李亚红 and Wang Sibei 王思北

Xinhua News Agency | 新华社

December 27, 2016

In response to the increasingly severe cybersecurity situation, and with the approval of the Central Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization, the Cyberspace Administration of China on the 27th issued the National Cyberspace Security Strategy. The strategy sets out nine missions:

  • safeguarding cyberspace sovereignty,
  • safeguarding national security,
  • protecting critical information infrastructure,
  • strengthening cyber culture development,
  • combating cyber terrorism and illegal crimes,
  • improving the cyberspace governance system,
  • consolidating the foundations of cybersecurity,
  • enhancing cyberspace defense capabilities,
  • and strengthening international cooperation in cyberspace.

针对日益严峻的网络安全形势，经中央网络安全和信息化领导小组批准，国家互联网信息办公室27日发布《国家网络空间安全战略》，提出捍卫网络空间主权、维护国家安全、保护关键信息基础设施、加强网络文化建设、打击网络恐怖和违法犯罪、完善网络治理体系、夯实网络安全基础、提升网络空间防护能力、强化网络空间国际合作等9项任务。

At present, China faces severe risks and challenges to cyberspace security, including attacks and sabotage against critical information infrastructure that seriously endanger national economic security and the public interest; harmful information such as online rumors, obscenity, violence, and superstition that erode cultural security and the physical and mental well-being of young people; the widespread presence of cyberterrorism and illegal online crimes that threaten people’s lives and property and disrupt social order; and increasingly intense international competition over control of cyberspace resources and the right to set rules, as well as a cyberspace arms race that challenges world peace.

当前，我国网络空间安全面临严峻风险与挑战，包括关键信息基础设施遭受攻击破坏，严重危害国家经济安全和公共利益；网络谣言、淫秽、暴力、迷信等有害信息侵蚀文化安全和青少年身心健康；网络恐怖和违法犯罪大量存在，威胁人民生命财产安全，破坏社会秩序；围绕网络空间资源控制权、规则制定权的国际竞争日趋激烈，网络空间军备竞赛挑战世界和平等。

“Cyberspace is profoundly transforming the way people live and work, but security issues cannot be ignored,” said Wang Xiujun, Deputy Director of the Cyberspace Administration of China. The strategy, she noted, fully embodies General Secretary Xi Jinping’s strategic thinking on building a Cyber Great Power and serves as a programmatic document guiding the country’s cybersecurity work. The strategy calls for taking the Holistic National Security Concept as guidance; fully implementing the development concepts of innovation, coordination, green development, openness, and sharing; strengthening risk awareness and crisis awareness; coordinating the two overall situations, domestic and international; and balancing the two major issues of development and security. The strategy urges active defense and effective response; promotes a cyberspace that is peaceful, secure, open, cooperative, and orderly: safeguards national sovereignty, security, and development interests; and seeks to achieve the strategic objective of building China into a Cyber Great Power.

“网络空间正全面改变人们的生产生活方式，但安全问题不容忽视。”国家网信办副主任王秀军说，战略充分体现了习近平总书记网络强国战略思想，是指导国家网络安全工作的纲领性文件。战略提出，以总体国家安全观为指导，贯彻落实创新、协调、绿色、开放、共享的发展理念，增强风险意识和危机意识，统筹国内国际两个大局，统筹发展安全两件大事，积极防御、有效应对，推进网络空间和平、安全、开放、合作、有序，维护国家主权、安全、发展利益，实现建设网络强国的战略目标。

The strategy also states that a secure, stable, and prosperous cyberspace is of great significance to all countries and to the world as a whole. China is willing to work with other countries to uphold the principles of respecting and safeguarding cyberspace sovereignty, making peaceful use of cyberspace, governing cyberspace according to law, and balancing cybersecurity and development. It calls for strengthening communication, broadening consensus, deepening cooperation, and actively advancing reform of the global internet governance system, so as to jointly safeguard peace and security in cyberspace.

战略还提出，一个安全稳定繁荣的网络空间，对各国乃至世界都具有重大意义。中国愿与各国一道，坚持尊重维护网络空间主权、和平利用网络空间、依法治理网络空间、统筹网络安全与发展，加强沟通、扩大共识、深化合作，积极推进全球互联网治理体系变革，共同维护网络空间和平安全。

Feedback & Corrections: Your questions, comments, additions, or corrections are always welcome! Please contact me at digitalchinawinsthefuture@gmail.com

AI Transparency: I use AI tools to support my editing, research, and translation process. Learn more on my AI Transparency Page.