With the economic growth moving away from the developed economies towards the developing ones, these countries are now wielding more influence in international affairs.
In a different era, only 60 years or so ago, many international institutions were created by the developed nations of that time – more or less on democratic principles, or at least in such a way that other countries could play a role in those organisations as well. It is only over the last decade or so that the developing economies have increased their participation in international affairs. The political changes in Russia and China have also created a far more serious participating position for them internationally; and Brazil and India are not far behind.
But also – often with the financial assistance of the developed countries – other developing economies have increased their participation in organisations such as the UN, UNESCO, ITU, etc. Many of these countries are not democratic, and some have totalitarian regimes that are changing after yet another internal war; they have different political agendas, and these often do not have the best interests of the people in mind.
Within these more or less democratic international organisations, those non-democratic forces are now also getting a voice, and understandably this is raising concerns.
In relation to the internet, these countries often see the developments facilitated by the internet as a threat to their regime and they want to have greater control over it.
China (supported, interestingly, by the technological knowhow of American and other western companies who are advocating the ‘free internet’ principles) is large enough and rich enough to basically build a gigantic firewall around the people in China who are using the internet. If other countries want to limit internet usage they can, of course, do so independently of other countries. This, for example, could be the message to President Putin, who is lobbying hard for more international control over the internet. But most countries are unwilling, or unable, to do this and they therefore exert pressure on the international bodies to intervene. And a hidden agenda here is to remove the US ‘control’ of the internet and replace it with international management, where these non-democratic countries at least have some control over it.