Divided by a common language: Cyber definitions in Chinese, Russian and English

During 2012, both the US and UK have signalled increased willingness to engage with Russia and China on cyber security issues. But this engagement will be extremely difficult to achieve in the absence of commonly agreed definitions, and even concepts, for what constitutes cyber security. Russian and Chinese doctrine and writing emphasise a very different set of security challenges to those which normally concern the US and UK. There is the additional complication of direct translations of specific terms from Russian and Chinese which resemble English-language terms, and therefore give the misleading impression of mutual understanding, while in fact referring to completely different concepts. A number of states including Russia and China, which do not subscribe to the Euroatlantic consensus on the nature and future of cyberspace, have already achieved a commonality in their views and language; while this language sometimes has no equivalent in English and is therefore imperfectly understood. This paper examines these distinctions, comparing and contrasting terms and concepts in English, Russian and Chinese. This will illustrate the dangers involved in attempting to reach a consensus - or at the very least confidence and security building measures - with states with widely differing views on cyber security without first establishing a baseline of common definitions. Examples will show how previous attempts at doing so have been counter-productive and set back mutual understanding.