Stacking the Deck: China’s Influence in Digital Rules Setting
VIEW EVENT DETAILSAs part of its push to become a "cyber great power," Beijing is steadily gaining a bigger role in setting international standards for emerging technologies. Through a range of tactics in standards-setting bodies and through the “Digital Silk Road” component of its Belt and Road Initiative, China is advancing a strategy that seems to aim for digital advantage — if not hegemony. Will China be able to “stack the deck” by rewriting international standards in ways that cement its place at the vanguard of next-generation technologies? Will it displace the United States’ preeminent role in digital governance and reshape the rules to limit cross-border information flows and promote a state-controlled future for the internet?
To explore these questions, please join the authors on Tuesday, November 30th for the release of the Asia Society Policy Institute’s new report, Stacking the Deck. This report analyzes Chinese policies, the role of the Belt and Road Initiative and Digital Silk Road, and examines China’s influence in digital rule-setting and the implications for global technology competition.
Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) Vice President Danny Russel and Assistant Director Blake Berger will present the report’s findings and discuss them with Mary Kay Magistad, associate director of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and a former Beijing-based China correspondent for NPR and for PRX's The World.
Speakers
Daniel Russel is Vice President for International Security and Diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI). Previously he served as a Diplomat-in-Residence and Senior Fellow with ASPI for a one year term. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service at the U.S. Department of State, he most recently served as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President and National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs, where he helped formulate President Obama’s strategic rebalance to the Asia Pacific region, including efforts to strengthen alliances, deepen U.S. engagement with multilateral organizations, and expand cooperation with emerging powers in the region. Among many roles at the Department of State, he served as Director of the Office of Japanese Affairs and U.S. Consul General in Osaka-Kobe.
Blake Berger is an Assistant Director at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. He serves as an assistant to ASPI's Vice President of International Security and Diplomacy Daniel Russel and works on issues relating to East and Southeast Asia. Prior to joining ASPI, Blake was a Research Associate at the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Blake’s research interests include The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Belt and Road Initiative, regional integration, international relations, political economy, United States foreign policy towards East and Southeast Asia, and international trade policy. Blake has an MA in Comparative Politics with a focus on Southeast Asia from American University’s School of International Service and his BA in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Mary Kay Magistad (Moderator) is the Associate Director of the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations. She is an award-winning journalist who lived and reported in East Asia for more than two decades, including in China for NPR (1995-99) and PRX’s The World (2003-13). She has taught international reporting at the University of California at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she also led the audio journalism department. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Dupont-Columbia Silver Baton award, an Overseas Press Club award, and awards from Sigma Delta Chi/Society of Professional Journalists and the Scripps-Howard Foundation. She has an M.A. from the University of Sussex (UK) in international relations and a B.A. from Northwestern University in journalism and history.