ChinAI #252: The Top 10 Events of Internet Governance in China from 2023

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Feature Translation: Top 10 Events in China’s Internet Governance in 2023

Context: Last year, one of my favorite round-ups was Caijing Elaw’s year-end recap of ten key events in China’s internet governance.

ChinAI #209: The Top Ten Events of Internet Governance in China in 2022

Now that another year is in the books, let’s run it back with their top ten events of internet governance in China from 2023 (link to original Chinese). What I really like about Caijing Elaw’s approach to these lists is the commentary from subject-matter experts that follow each event.

The ten events, in chronological order:

1. National Data Administration sets sail: this body is tasked with coordinating and promoting the construction of data infrastructure.

2. Micron fails cybersecurity review: In May 2023, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced that Micron (U.S. firm that produces memory and storage chips) had failed a cybersecurity review. In DigiChina, Graham Webster provided a great write-up of this case.

3. Ant Financial and Tenpay receive heavy fines: On July 7, 2023, both financial platforms incurred fines in the billions (RMB). Per the article, this move also signaled a shift from “centralized rectification” of platform companies to normalized supervision. Renmin University of China’s Zheng Zhigang comments, “The end of this centralized rectification also sends an important signal: encouraging the private economy to play a more active role on China's economic stage…It is more conducive to the long-term development of enterprises to replace short-term and rigid regulations (that are externally imposed) with internal norms and internal governance of enterprise and industries.”

4. New regulations on cyberviolence management released: This follows one of the key events from 2022 (Liu Xuezhou’s tragic story prompting regulatory authorities to pay more attention to cyberbullying).

5. China implements world’s first AI-generated content regulations: after the interim measures for the management of generative AI services were put into effect on August 15, the first batch of large models were approved for widescale public access on August 31, 2023.

6. Accounting for data assets: Following the release of the “Twenty Data Measures” (one of 2022’s key events), the Ministry of Finance issued interim provisions that clarified how companies could list data resources as assets or R&D expenses in their accounting statements.

7. China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) fined 50 million RMB for unauthorized processing of personal information.

8. Regulations on the protection of minors online. See China Law Translate for more background info on these rules.

9. China adjudicates first “AI text-to-image” infringement case: In November 2023, the Beijing Internet Court found that AI-generated images qualified as works of art under copyright law. Li Yunkai, the plaintiff, had used the Stable Diffusion model to generate images; the defendant had removed Li’s watermark and posted those images on their social media account without permission. The punishment? An apology and 500 RMB in compensation.

10. Controversy over preservation of China Judgements Online (CJO) [裁判文书网]: As old judicial decisions have been taken off of CJO, concerns that CJO may be completely shut down have become a hot topic.

If you want to delve deeper into any of the ten topics, after each topic, the full translation includes relevant Caijing Elaw articles — FULL TRANSLATION: Top 10 Events in China’s Internet Governance in 2023.

ChinAI Links (Four to Forward)

Should-read: Four things to know about China’s new AI rules in 2024

A great overview of things to look out for on Chinese AI regulations in 2024. This first appeared in Zeyi Yang’s China Report, MIT Tech Review’s newsletter about technology in China.

Should-read: Kai-fu Lee’s new 01.AI start-up

For Wired, Will Knight has good coverage on open-source models released by Beijing-based startup 01.AI, which have scored well on various leaderboards.

Should-read: China to limit access to court judgement searches to internal use

This article, by Gu Ting for RFA Mandarin (translated by Luisetta Mudie), helped me understand the controversy over China Judgements Online.

Should-read: Slow change can be radical change

I enjoyed Rebecca Solnit’s meditations on the pace of change, published on Literary Hub.

Thank you for reading and engaging.

These are Jeff Ding's (sometimes) weekly translations of Chinese-language musings on AI and related topics. Jeff is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University.

Check out the archive of all past issues here & please subscribe here to support ChinAI under a Guardian/Wikipedia-style tipping model (everyone gets the same content but those who can pay for a subscription will support access for all).

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