Under Xi Jinping China has made no secret that it aspires to bigger roles on the global stage, including taking on leadership in global governance and multilateral cooperation. Xi’s recent speech at Davos World Economic Forum, though a little ironic, came as a timely boost for international trade and economic cooperation. In the case of climate change, should China become the next champion, this is not only because it seeks international status, but there is also concrete convergence of domestic interests and international commitments.

Real power in global governance requires intellectual input into the international financial and economic agenda, policies and rules — the effective exercise of ‘soft’ power. [...] The major substantial outcomes of the G20 to date, including updating international financial regulatory rules through Basel III and international tax cooperation on tax havens, have been mostly led by the Atlantic countries.

China’s diplomacy has truly gone global. Over the past forty years China has traveled a path from a nation isolated from the international community to one integrated into it. Today, Beijing enjoys diplomatic relations with 175 countries, is a member of more than 150 international organizations and is party to more than three hundred multilateral treaties. 
 

Asked at a media forum in St. Petersburg about Russia’s largest search engine, Yandex, storing its data on servers outside the country, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Internet was originally a "CIA project" and "is still developing as such."

The National Telecommunications & Administration of the Department Commerce on Friday announced a plan to shift responsibility for overseeing the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to “the global multistakeholder community.”   This plan reflects a strong commitment to keeping the technical operations of the Internet in the hands of its nongovernmental community and out of the hands of governmental bodies.