Russia and China are working together to tame the Internet – RTP

The legislation that grants the Kremlin primacy over the cyberspace – traffic exchange points, Internet domains, and fiber optic cables cross-border that constitute the architecture of the network – was announced this month.

This limitation of freedom in the network results from fear of the Russian Government that the Internet can be used to mobilize protesters and to disseminate information and ideas considered to be dangerous. The theme has been discussed with China over the last year.

The first meeting between the two countries, in April, was attended by representatives of the russians and the chinese, among whom Igor Shchyogolev, assistant of Vladimir Putin to the affairs of the Internet, and Fang Binxing, a member of the Communist Party of China (CCP) and the main responsible for the current censorship of the network in the country.

In June, the Russian President, was in Beijing to sign a joint statement on cyberspace.
"Sources of dubious" Huawei
Even during the summer, and in the wake of various measures of combating terrorism, Russia has adopted the law of Yarovaya, according to which all Internet providers in russia are obliged to store user data for six months, and the metadata for three years.

however, Russia lacks the necessary technology to be able to cope with the amount of information that the law Yarovaya implies. Not being able to rely on western technologies, the help of China is essential.

In August, the Russian manufacturer of telecommunications equipment Blat began to negotiate with the telecommunications company, chinese Huawei, with a view to buy data storage technologies.

"Huawei is essentially a arm of the chinese State, regardless of who owns it," said the lawyer Gordon Chang, the daily british The Guardian. "Its origins are dubious, the growth is too fast for a private company in China, the State representatives support their efforts and the absence of competition also means something."
The case for LinkedIn
The law of Yarovaya is not the only one to restrict the use of the Internet in Russia. Other legislation passed two years ago requires also that the data of the users in the country to be stored on Russian territory.

Although Facebook and Twitter have achieved, so far, to resist the pressure from the authorities and keep their servers in other places, without suffering the consequences, the social network, and professional LinkedIn was blocked in November. Of the 467 million members around the world, more than six million of them were russians.

This law seems to have influenced China, that on 7 November it also adopted the strategy of cyber-security with Russia and ordered that all the data were stored in the national territory, raising international concern about censorship in the country.

The collaboration between the powers of Putin and Jinping, therefore, appears to benefit both parties.