Introductory note

• Author: Han Dayuan
• Pages: 4-5

FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA

VOL. 13 SEPTEMBER 2018 NO. 3

DOI 10.3868/s050-007-018-0022-7

SPECIAL ISSUE

PARADIGMS OF INTERNET REGULATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION AND CHINA

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

HAN Dayuan*

One of the cooperations that I attached great importance to was the young scholar

joint research program on internet regulation established towards the end of my Deanship

between our law school and the LMU Munich Faculty of Law. Therefore, I was very

delighted to join, together with Prof. Dr. Dieter Grimm, their first workshop in Beijing in

April 2017; and I am even more delighted to see the fruits of this project will be

published in both China and Germany now.

Internet regulation is a topic that has taken the center stage of public debate and

academic research worldwide. Facing the challenges posed by the internet, each legal

order has come up with different regulatory policies and instruments. Yet all the

paradigms of internet regulation share the same objective: to achieve a balance among

human rights, security and sovereignty. Although starting from their respective political

and legal contexts, this shared objective has made the cooperative and comparative

research particularly meaningful.

The previous three industrial revolutions have brought tremendous progress and

benefits to human society, yet at the same time resulted in concerns that many of our

community’s values were being diminished and marginalized. The emerging Fourth

Industrial Revolution, while sweepingly changing the way we live, dramatically

aggravates our worries through its attendant risks and uncertainties. Taking artificial

intelligence, one of the advancements that characterize the new era, as an example.

Instantly after we celebrate this great technological breakthrough, a trepidation began to

grow: Will we be able to control it in the future? We fear that one day humanity might be

trumped by technology with human society being dominated by AI. We wonder why the

technologies we invent sometimes threaten our life and trample our dignity. We ask where

shall we set the boundaries for technological developments.

* (󳒾) Ph.D. in Law, School of Law, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China; Professor, School of

Law, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China. Contact: handayuan@263.net