As Singapore launches its Cybersecurity Strategy 2026, China points to its own UN position paper on AI governance, with both sides converging on calls for multilateral cyber rules.
The impact of artificial intelligence on cybersecurity emerged as a shared concern among nations at the Singapore International Cyber Week this October, as Singapore rolled out a new national strategy and China pointed to overlapping priorities in its own international proposals.
Speaking at the event’s welcome address on 12 October, Singapore’s Minister for Digital Development and Information, Josephine Teo, said artificial intelligence “intensifies the risks by allowing threat actors to move with greater speed and scale,” a theme carried into the Cybersecurity Strategy 2026 launched the following day by Senior Minister K. Shanmugam. The strategy’s approach treats AI as a double-edged capability: a tool that sharpens attackers’ reach, but one that also demands rigorous testing, monitoring and human oversight before it is trusted with critical defensive functions.
China has framed its own position in similar terms. In a position paper submitted earlier this year, Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on all countries to “observe the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter in cyberspace,” while urging states to “respect each other’s digital sovereignty” and take seriously what it called the “disruptive impact of emerging technologies such as AI.” The paper argues for a “multilateral, democratic, and transparent global Internet governance system,” explicitly rejecting the idea that state-led governance should be displaced by private-sector control.
The two countries’ positions converge most clearly on the need for updated international rules. China’s paper calls for cyber norms that “keep pace with the times,” including global standards to test the risks posed by large AI models, a concern that comes through Singapore’s own emphasis on testing and assurance before AI systems are connected to high-impact systems.
Beijing has signalled its readiness to work with other parties on the issue, stating it is prepared “to work with all parties to promote a more just and equitable global cyberspace order.” With Singapore’s new strategy and China’s UN proposals both published within months of each other in 2026, the overlap points to a potential basis for deeper coordination between the two countries on AI governance in cyberspace, even as broader multilateral negotiations on international cyber rules continue.
Source: Chinese Ambassador to Singapore Cao Zhongming
