In cyberspace order and governance, China is a global leader. It’s capacity continues to improve, and it has a major role to play in working toward a more peaceful, secure, open and cooperative digital future.

Most countries agree that data security touches on national security, and increased wrangling over data sovereignty is the new normal. Given the lack of trust between China and the United States, data security will inevitably become a new playing field in bilateral competition.

Concerns of China and the United States over science and technology can be resolved by the international community. Avoiding the huge cost of decoupling should be a top consideration.

Earlier this year, American officials acknowledged that US offensive cyber operations had stopped Russian disruption of the 2018 congressional election. Such operations are rarely discussed, but this time there was commentary about a new offensive doctrine of “persistent engagement” with potential adversaries. Will it work?

The key characteristic of the current revolution is not the speed of communications; instantaneous communication by telegraph dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. The crucial change is the enormous reduction in the cost of transmitting and storing information. If the price of an automobile had declined as rapidly as the price of computing power, one could buy a car today for the same price as a cheap lunch.

This buzz surrounding this year’s World Internet Conference (WIC) has been about the first-time attendance of Apple’s and Google’s CEOs, distracting critics from an equally interesting issue: what do countries that send both tech industry and government representatives gain in the long term from participating in these meetings?

The question for Western diplomats dealing in global Internet governance must be how to effectively engage China so as to maintain peace, security and stability in cyberspace – goals to which China’s cooperation strategy commits explicitly. Will cold-shouldering China empower those voices in Beijing advocating a more hawkish and isolating approach to global internet norms? Meeting China halfway on some of its desiderata, for instance a more high-profile presence at flagship Chinese events, might not only lead to a broader basis for engagement and trust, but also enable support for those voices within the Chinese system whose objectives overlap more with that of outside countries.

A series of episodes in recent years – including Russia’s cyber interventions to skew the United States’ 2016 presidential election toward Donald Trump, the anonymous cyber-attacks that disrupted Ukraine’s electricity system in 2015, and the “Stuxnet” virus that destroyed a thousand Iranian centrifuges – has fueled growing concern about conflict in cyberspace.

Is a Geneva Convention the only response to the problem of government cyber-attacks against individuals? As global stakeholders of the internet, we must do more.

China’s Cybersecurity Law has elicited rather negative responses from foreign businesses, governments and NGOs. Perhaps ironically, the U.S. thus seems to have fallen victim to what Beijing has long feared would happen to them: ideological infiltration by a geostrategic adversary aimed at upsetting the political system.