The double standards and hegemonic acts of the United States in the field of human rights are well known. In recent years, the United States has extended hegemonism to the field of science and technology, under the banner of so-called democracy, human rights, freedom and security, and achieved the goal of putting its own interests above those of other countries by such despicable means as unwarranted accusations, "long-arm jurisdiction", suppression of sanctions and targeted technical blockade of other countries. The hegemonism of science and technology pursued by the United States is a typical manifestation of its consistent concept of "American priority". Its hegemonic behavior of politicizing, weaponizing and ideologizing scientific and technological issues not only seriously damages the "digital human rights" of other countries, but also hinders global technical cooperation and progress.
Engage in "small circles" on the grounds of so-called "network security" to create division and confrontation.
Influenced by the deep-rooted zero-sum thinking and the Cold War thinking, the United States has always handled international relations in a split and confrontational way, constantly creating "small circles" of science and technology such as "chip alliance" and "clean network" on the pretext of so-called "network security", labeling high technology as democracy and human rights, and looking for excuses to impose technological blockade on other countries.
In the name of democracy, the United States maintains the hegemony of science and technology, and launches various technical alliances with democracy as the ideological link and network security as the goal, such as Prague Proposal and 5G Clean Path. In April 2022, the United States and 60 global partners issued the Declaration on the Future Internet, with the real intention of delineating a "net in the net" or a "digital alliance" led by the United States in the global Internet. The United States has also pushed the private sector to strengthen technology blockade and build technology fences, trying to contain competitors by means of sanctions and bans, which has seriously hindered exchanges and cooperation, development and progress in the global scientific and technological field.
Using the so-called "public safety" as an excuse to wantonly monitor and infringe on privacy.
The United States has always been the world’s number one telecom thief, and its monitoring targets include not only so-called "sensitive people" but also ordinary people in the country; There are not only so-called opponents, but also their allies, even the leaders of the allies.
In the first half of 2022, the US military and government network departments remotely stole more than 97 billion global Internet data and 124 billion telephone records in nearly 30 days, involving the personal privacy of a large number of citizens around the world. According to the annual report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on April 29th, 2022, the FBI conducted as many as 3.4 million searches on the electronic data of the American people in one year without a search warrant.
In fact, since the middle of the 20th century, the United States has a record of monitoring other countries. In the information age, the United States has gone to great lengths to implement a number of eavesdropping and stealing projects, such as Prism Gate, Dirty Box, Nujiao Plan and Telescreen Action. Various eavesdropping and stealing methods have emerged one after another, including using analog cell phone base station signals to access mobile phones to steal data, manipulating mobile phone applications, invading cloud servers, and stealing secrets through submarine optical cables.
According to the German weekly Der Spiegel, from 2003 to 2013, the Office of Specific Invasion Operations under the US National Security Agency invaded 258 targets in 89 countries and regions. Over the years, the office has also carried out tens of thousands of malicious attacks on network targets in China. For example, in the cyber theft attack on Northwestern Polytechnical University, 54 springboard machines and proxy servers in 17 countries were used successively, with more than 1,100 attack links and as many as 41 kinds of special cyber attack weapons and equipment of the National Security Agency of the United States. The eavesdropping behavior of the United States has already caused public outrage in the international community.
Technical blockade under the pretext of so-called "technical security" damages the right to development.
For some time, the United States has spared no effort to put different political labels on the R&D, use and governance of emerging technologies and the supply chain of scientific and technological products. By dividing the so-called "safety trust level", publishing a series of lists and building a technological ecosystem under the so-called "credible" standards, the United States has abused scientific and technological hegemony to suppress competitors, which has seriously damaged the development rights of other countries.
In November 2018, since the implementation of the so-called "China Action Plan" in the United States, Chinese scientists have been harassed, monitored and attacked by the American government for no reason, and various bad and absurd acts of law enforcement departments have been exposed by the media. Although the plan was stopped in 2022 in the voice of doubt and opposition, the hegemonic behavior of the United States "only allowing itself to develop and not allowing others to progress" has not ended. The United States promulgated the Chip and Science Act and a series of new export control regulations for China in an attempt to restrict China’s ability to acquire advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers and manufacture advanced semiconductors.
Ignoring or denying the scientific and technological sovereignty, people’s interests and development demands of other countries and regions, the United States attempts to take its lead in the allocation of network resources, hardware equipment and software applications as a hegemonic strategic tool by refusing competition, grabbing wealth, exporting ideology and squeezing the space for scientific and technological development in other countries around the world, which not only seriously hinders other countries from using new technologies, but also further widens the trust gap in global digital space security, undermines the global industrial chain layout and scientific and technological order, and violates the laws of global scientific and technological development.
The French philosopher Saint-Simon once said: "For all mankind, there is only one common interest, and that is the progress of science." Scientific and technological innovation is an important engine for the development of human society, and scientific and technological achievements should benefit all mankind. Hegemonism in science and technology poses a new threat to world peace and development. The international community should recognize the hypocritical nature of American technological hegemonism, jointly resist American arrogance, prejudice and hegemonic behavior of technological hegemony, jointly respond to all kinds of cyber attacks, and maintain a peaceful, safe, open, cooperative and orderly cyberspace.
(The author is a researcher at the Human Rights Research Center of Central South University)
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