Date: 4 Aug 2014
Time: 15:30 – 17:00
Venue: Tapas 1
Remote Participation LInks: Video / Text / Adobe Connect
| Workshop Title | Cybersecurity policy, strategy and implementation in the Asia Pacific region: The nature of the heterogeneity and its implications |
| Thematic Area of Interest | Appropriate regulatory regimes |
| Specific Issues of Discussions & Description | Asian economies have engaged in high profile policy initiatives to strengthen cybersecurity. A body recently formed in China to coordinate cybersecurity is headed by the President Xi Jinping. In his 2014 New Year’s message, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the country’s post-World War II constitution, which limits the use of military force to situations involving self-defense, could be amended by 2020. Cyber-threats facing the nation provided a rationale behind the motivation for the proposed amendment. Likewise, in 2013, South Korea announced that it would double cybersecurity budget and spend $8.76 billion by 2017 and train 5,000 cybersecurity experts.The panel will provide insight into the highly heterogeneous and rapidly evolving cybersecurity policy, strategy and implementation in Asia. It will highlight key differences among major economies in the region. First, the panel will stress that a significant variation is observed in the power and influence of various stakeholder groups. Let us compare China and India. Trade associations such as National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) are key players in India. The Data Security Council of India (DSCI), NASSCOM’s self-regulatory member organization, imposes a fine of up to US$1 million to member companies that fail to secure data. The Internet Society of China (ISC) can be considered as an entity that is most analogous to the NASSCOM. ISC, however, has been described as a “quasi-governmental” organization and hence mostly acts under the guidance of the government. Under China’s current institutional structures, trade associations and special interest groups are less prevalent.Second, economies in the region differ in the membership in international organizations related to cybersecurity. Japan has signed as well as ratified the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. China, on the other hand, is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional multilateral exclusive grouping established for politico-security arrangements, whichhas also dealt with cybersecurity-related matters.
A third difference can be seen in the devotion of resources in cybersecurity. For instance, in April 2013, Japan’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced a plan to set up a new Cyber Defense Unit (CDU) within the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) with an operating budget of US$142 million. As noted above, South Korea’s cybersecurity investment is significantly larger. A fourth difference concerns the cybersecurity -related relationship with Western countries. For instance, whereas Japan and South Korea actively cooperate with the U.S. and other Western countries to promote cyberdefense, allegations and counter-allegations have been widespread in the U.S.-China discourse on the governance of cyberspace. The panel will look at factors that may explain the difference observed above such as the natures of cyber/physical threats, availability of resources to develop cybersecurity capabilities and the nature of formal/informal institutions. The panel will examine the effect of the heterogeneity on cybersecurity-related cooperation and collaboration in the region and collective efforts to a secure the cyberspace. We will offer recommendations on what countries in the Asia Pacific region can learn from each other and also from the experiences of countries outside the region.
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| Expected Format and Target Panel Members | Moderator:Nir Kshetri, Professor, Bryan School of Business and Economics, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Male, Civil Society, USAPanelists (Onsite and remote):Ms. Lailani Alcantara, Associate Professor, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Civil Society, Japan, Asia-Pacific Group
Mr. Hideyuki Fujii, Resarcher, InfoCom Research, Industry, Asia-Pacific Group. Mr. Aroop Menon, Senior Product Marketing Specialist, SolarWinds, Industry, Asia Pacific Group Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India, Technical Ms. Sunanda Sangwan, Professor, Shantou Business School (SBS), Civil Society, China, Asia-Pacific Group (Remote) Ms. Hong Xue, Professor, Institute for Internet Policy & Law (IIPL), Civil Society, China, Asia-Pacific Group (Remote) |
| Workshop Organiser | 1)James FosterProfessorGraduate School of Media and GovernanceKeio University
2)Nir Kshetri Professor Bryan School of Business and Economics The University of North Carolina at Greensboro |