Countries such as China, Iran, Russia, and the United States are heavily investing in their cyberwar capabilities and are accumulating not just single cyber weapons but entire cyber weapon arsenals for use in wartime. Small and medium powers will need to start a public debate about how to tackle the growing threats from cyberspace sooner rather than later.

The US government recently announced it would transfer governance of the Internet to the “global multi-stakeholder community” on Oct 1. This is a major step forward in global Internet governance reform since in March 2014, when the US National Communications and Information Administration formally declared it would surrender control over ICANN.

The Chinese government published its national cyber strategy, which aims to transform it into a strong Internet power within this century. It will have a considerable impact on how China will attempt not only to reshape the architecture information and communication technologies at home, but also how it will position itself in global strategic terms.

Cyberspace is a world of inter-connectivity and convergence of interests. In terms of ensuring the security, equality, freedom and development of cyberspace, China shares the same goals with all other countries and aims to prevent abuses that interfere with those goals.

Lu Wei, China’s Internet Czar is stepping down, causing speculation to arise that he may have been demoted or dismissed. Rogier Creemers considers a more likely scenario: Lu Wei may be promoted to lead the Central Propaganda Department, as its relevance to media has waned compared to the multitude of voices online through social media. In a very short time, Lu reversed the leadership's perception of the Internet from something to be feared to something that could be mastered.

The first nuclear arms control agreements in the 1960s did not solve all the problems of controlling nuclear weapons. But after two decades of slow learning, those agreements started a process. Joseph S. Nye proposes that President Obama and President Xi’s 2015 agreement on cyber espionage may do something similar for cyber security.

: Franz-Stefan Gady argues that the end goal of Sino-U.S. deliberations will not be an end to state-sponsored hacking or cyber espionage, but to put a framework in place that will not only help prevent disagreements in cyberspace from spilling over into other parts of the bilateral relationship, but also help both sides to get closer to an understanding of what constitutes strategic stability, i.e., peace, in cyberspace.

The United States is pleased to see progress has been made with China on information sharing about cyber threats, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday during the latest round of cyber security talks between the two countries.

Norms, or generally accepted modes of behaviour, have provided a quicker and more flexible approach than international law for governing actions in cyberspace. While both China and the United States have begun discussing such behaviour in terms of international law, it currently seems unlikely that an agreement, or even trust, will be reached in the near future.

A group of senior U.S. and China cyber officials on Wednesday held its first meeting since the two countries struck an anti-hacking agreement in September to try to ease years of acrimony over the issue.