Failed China-U.S. Cybersecurity Cooperation Under Trump: How And Why

As a new domain for international cooperation and competition,the cyberspace and its security have been drawing more and more attention from all the countries.In cyberspace,China-U.S.cooperation and competition on cybersecurity are very important,China and the United States once made great efforts to realize bilateral cybersecurity cooperation within the frameworks of many international regimes.During the Obama Administration,China and the U.S.reached a series of agreements,built the dialogue mechanism and achieved remarkable accomplishments.However,after President Trump took office,the China-U.S cybersecurity cooperation fell into suspension.This dissertation is an inquiry into this question:Why China and the United States can’t sustain and continue the cooperation on cybersecurity during the Trump administration?In order to answer this question,this research adopts Robert Keohane’s institutional liberalism as theoretical framework.According to Keohane,international cooperation can be facilitated by functional international regimes.Functional international regimes are built on stable interdependence relationship,which is affected by three factors:sensitivity and vulnerability,issue-linkage and multiple channels.Discourse analysis is selected as the research method.Materials including key official documents,mainstream coverage and basic information about international regimes are adopted to analyze the resorts of China and the U.S.on cybersecurity issue and the obstacles to their cooperation in this fieldExisting international regimes have failed to facilitate the U.S.-China cybersecurity cooperation due to the following flaws.First,cybersecurity regimes under the UN framework are still a working process,far from be perfect,unable to reconcile the essential divergences between China and the United States on cybersecurity issue.Such divergences complicate the efforts on both sides to reach any consensus on establishing international norms.Second,in other international economic multilateral regimes,the cybersecurity problem is usually put to the sideline of the agenda.Besides,these regimes,by nature,is more inclined to prioritize the economic dimension of cybersecurity.Third,in cyberspace-oriented NGOs,governmental participation is often half-hearted with little,if not none,dedication.The limited influence of NGOs on government behavior has led their rather insightful recommendations lay futile.Fourth,although China and the United States did build a dialogue mechanism on cybersecurity during the Obama Administration,this regime,for its lack of provisions on the withdrawal,plays no restrictive role in case a signatory wishes to leave the pack.Moreover,the actual policy significance of the representatives from both sides is marginal due to the non-equivalence in terms of expertise and seniorityBy analyzing the Trump Administration’s government documents and reports on cybersecurity issue,this thesis argues that the root cause of the regime dysfunction lies in changing China-U.S.complex interdependence.First,the United States has become more sensitive to China’s leaps and bounds in high-technology and advanced manufacturing.The Trump Administration is determined to perceive China as a "competitor" rather than a partner like Obama did and has,accordingly,toughened its overall stance toward China Moreover,since China has greater vulnerability than America in China-U.S.complex interdependence,the Trump Administration gains power over China from this asymmetric interdependence and has the will to make full use of it when dealing with China.Second,the Trump Administration adopts the issue-linkage strategy to politicize cybersecurity,especially by prioritizing the national security dimension of cybersecurity,which is a marked diversion from the previous bilateral consensus that cybersecurity is primarily an issue with a technological solution.Third,the multiple channels between China and the United States are obstructed due to Trump’s excessive political interference;that is,various unofficial but once functional channels for cooperation are blockedAgainst this backdrop,China has three options.First,China can decrease its vulnerability to the United States by continuing its development in advanced manufacturing and further reducing its dependence on American high-tech products,or by cooperating with other states to establish international cybersecurity norms exclusive of the United States.Second,China continues to insist on and work on open-source technological solutions to the cybersecurity problem.Third,China and the United States should endeavor to restart the connections,and probably first at low levels.