China has the largest amount of users in the world, a significant digital economy growth potential, and its national Internet giants Alibaba, Didi, Tencent and Baidu are increasingly able to rival the biggest Western competitors in terms of market value and influence on the global tech landscape. China’s cyber diplomacy puts special attention towards equal participation, the principles of non-interference in internal affairs, non-use of force and peaceful settlement of disputes, and support for multilateral institutions to shape normative views on the governance of cyberspace. However, China’s propagation of the cyber-sovereignty approach to international cybersecurity policy and an absolutist reading of sovereignty in cyberspace provide a legal cloak for state practices that often run counter to the core European values of a global, open, and free Internet.
As of 2009, Ukraine has been a member of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and a strategic partner for the EU. On the basis of the
EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (AA) signed in 2014, the country has engaged in legislative and policy reforms aiming at gradual convergence with the EU
acquis, including on digital economy. During the past two years, digitalisation has become a
“flagship topic” in Ukraine, with a growing focus on e-government, digital citizenship, and state support for the local IT industry. Ukraine suffered large-scale cyberattacks during the 2014 presidential elections [
x], distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks during the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 [
x], malware attacks on its power grid in 2015 [
x], and was also heavily impacted by the devastating global-scale
NotPetya attack in 2017. This explains why Ukraine prioritised capacity building efforts to strengthen its cyber resilience.
Japan is a trusted partner and shares the same basic values of human rights, rule of law, and democratic governance. This common set of values also applies to cyberspace as both the EU and Japan have publicly expressed strong support for an open, free and secure internet and the application of international norms to state activities in cyberspace. Japan is also an important trading partner of the EU. The recently adopted Economic Partnership Agreement also reinforces the need for a closer integration of the digital economies. Alignment in broader international economic and political issues is also evident in the field of cyber diplomacy and thus constitutes a strong foundation for close cooperation and partnership.
