China Not Expected to Influence New ITU Secretary General
Incoming ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao of China isn’t expected to shake up the organization, Internet governance experts told us in recent weeks. Some ITU critics are wary of how the Chinese government, which has restrictive Internet policies, could influence Zhao’s leadership, but many in the telecom industry consider Zhao a “friend,” said David Gross, a Wiley Rein lawyer. Zhao was elected at last month’s ITU Plenipotentiary (see 1410240047), receiving 152 votes of the 156 member countries that were present at the ITU. Zhao will succeed Mali’s Hamadoun Toure as ITU secretary-general Jan. 1.
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The difference between Zhao and Toure lies in personality, said Gross, who led several U.S. delegations at ITU conferences under then-President George W. Bush. Toure was a “charismatic extrovert” who increased the ITU’s “visibility” within the U.N. by creating the ITU Broadband Commission, he said. An “important piece of good news” is that Zhao is “well known” to many in Washington and globally in the telecom industry, he said. Telecom officials have been “comforted” by their “close working relationship” with Zhao, Gross said.
Zhao’s election isn’t likely to create much “change in direction” at the ITU, said Harold Furchtgott-Roth, Hudson Institute Center for Economics of the Internet director. The ITU is a “very large U.N. organization” and “large bodies like that don’t change direction very often,” said Furchtgott-Roth, a former Republican FCC commissioner. Many of the ITU member countries are “pretty independent minded” and aren’t “waiting for the secretary-general to tell them when to march,” Furchtgott-Roth said. It’s not as if all the home countries of Zhao’s predecessors were “close allies” of the U.S., he said.
China has “gotten smarter” on how to get what it wants out of Internet governance debates, said Shane Tews, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy. Tews said China was initially uninvolved in the Internet Engineering Task Force, but began getting proposals approved at the IETF through a “quasi-formal process.” Zhao’s election shows there’s “a lot of division on what the next generation of the Internet should provide,” she said. That boils to down to whether governments should have control over the Internet or whether free speech rights can be “baked” into the way the Internet functions, Tews said.
It’s important to remember that each ITU member state only has one vote, said John Laprise, an Internet governance scholar and consultant. Zhao has said the ITU and ICANN should “work together,” which isn’t “exactly the kind of sentiment the U.S. wants to hear,” Laprise said. The U.S. likely wouldn’t take issue with the ITU assisting on some Internet governance issues, but it “can’t play a leading role” in ICANN-related matters, including the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority functions, Laprise said. Zhao probably isn’t alone in his desire for the ITU to play a “bigger role” in Internet issues, but that doesn’t seem to be in the “cards” from a U.S. perspective, he said.
Once Zhao begins his tenure in January, it will be interesting to see how the “continuity” develops with his staff and the direction set by Toure, Gross said. The ITU senior staff will remain “largely the same,” he said. The ITU should continue to play a “developmental role” for Internet infrastructure in developing countries, Laprise said.