Topic: Future of Cyber Warfare
Country: China
Delegate Name: Harrison Watson
School: Flint Southwestern Classical Academy
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All China position papers GLIMUN 2012 committees
In recent years the world has become more and more under the influence of computers. This development of technologies, and reliance on it, has opened up a new terrain of warfare: “Cyber Warfare”. With more computer controlled, and technology oriented governments, militaries, economies, and populations, the threat of major cyber attack has become all too imminent. As technology becomes more available to the population, rogue hackers and organizations have found it easier to gain access, and to terrorize the online world. New and ingenious viruses are becoming a reality, and the line between Cyber war and actual military action has become less defined. Incidents such as the Stuxnet virus infiltration of Iranian nuclear plants will become more common, and the difference between government cyber attack, and rogue hackers is near impossible to discern.
This is an especially sensitive subject in our (The Peoples Republic of China) case, simply because we have the largest internet using community in the world. The Peoples Republic of China is a strong believer in national sovereignty, and believes that each nation’s restrictions and policies should be its own, therefore no international laws infringing on national sovereignty on the subject of internet policies should be in place. Furthermore, the prevention of cyber attacks is directly affected by the policies and protection put in place by each nation. We, the Peoples Republic of China see cyber warfare directed by foreign nations to be a major security threat, more so than ever before. Government cyber attacks should be classified as cyber warfare, and will warrant an immediate retaliation upon the same medium. It will be the job of the United Nations to discern the responses warranted by attacks (which should be completely determined by the sovereign state), and to which extremes it should be classified as. Cyber attacks acted upon the civilians of a nation will also be addressed by the United Nations, and what measures are to be taken against the offending nation(s), and what measures are to be taken in order to prevent any such attack. The difference between a government attack and a group of rogue cyber criminals will have to be discerned, much like the difference between a hostile nation and terrorist organization has been defined.
We, The Peoples Republic of China have the largest population of internet users, as well as a highly technology oriented government. The havoc reaped by such acts as cyber terrorism and cyber warfare must be avoided at all cost, and punished if not avoided. However, the restrictions enacted upon a people should be up to the Sovereign nation acting upon the people.
