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For the 21st century, communications (the internet and its successors) and data will be as vital as oil and electricity were for the 20th century. Communication networks are the basis of business and industry, and increasingly, of social and political life.

Countries are developing and deploying a growing range of capabilities to leverage the cyber domain for their national interest using such techniques as theft of intellectual property, influencing other nations’ internal politics, conducting cyber-espionage, and even developing cyber weapons that can be used to inflict the kind of damage that has up to now required more typical weapons.

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Sovereignty thus depends on the extent to which a country is able to exploit or defend national networks and assert control over the connectivity that the global communications infrastructure enables.

The importance of cyberspace to this century is why Huawei has been in the news. Quick to realize the importance of cyber capabilities, China has been strategic in enabling Huawei to compensate for the greater wealth and skill of the U.S. and other Western rivals.